Tales of Friendship
by NoName999
Summary: Eight young adults go through the normality and the insanity of their lives while developing strong, platonic bonds that will last forever. A Rise of the Tangled Brave Frozen Dragon crossover. Rated T for mild swearing and sexual innuendo. No romantic shipping that isn't canon pairings. Chapter 14: Merida tries becoming a Guardian.
1. Tales of Soon To Be Friendship

_**A prologue to this story that I'm doing. Where Elsa and Anna hang out with other CGI characters. And while Elsa and Anna are the central characters for the first few chapters, it's going to be an ensemble cast. Most of the humor are gonna be based on Rareware humor, "Tales of" skits humor, and whatever original humor I can cook up**_

_**Of course, considering the craze, you can probably guess who 4 out of the 6 would be. The remaining 2 are also from the four's respectable franchises. Supporting characters will also come and go as they please.**_

* * *

**Tales of Soon to be Friendship**  
It was a normal day in the quiet kingdom of Arendelle: people going about their daily lives, men setting off to work, women talking about the local gossip, and children playing with their imaginations. However, on this day, the lives of two lonely young women would change forever.

See, although these two women- sisters, by the way, managed to repair their long estranged relationship, they were still rather alone. Now of course, a familial relationship is one of, if not the most important, relationships a person can ever have. However, other relationships are also really nice to have.

This is something the younger, more sociable sister realized. And naturally, she would jump at the chance to make more friends. Especially human friends since her closest circle consist of a living snowman and a reindeer. Not that she was complaining as she loved them regardless.

However, when she read a letter that was addressed to her, she was ecstatic. The younger sister, who happened to be a princess had previously written a letter to a young woman she had met at her older sister's royal coronation. The little sister's letter was simple yet eloquent, as she knew that she had to dot her "I's", cross her "t's" and slash those "z's." The letter was a personal letter was a simple request to extend a hand of friendship for her, her older sister, and the young woman. So imagine her surprise when the young woman's reply was not only a resounding "yes", but the young woman would also like for the royal sisters of Arendelle to meet her other five friends.

Well that surprise consisted of the younger princess running through the castle in glee, a smile so wide on her face that one could actually think that the corners of her mouth did touch both of her ears. Her strawberry blonde pigtails were swinging to and fro as she sprinted towards wherever her sister could be found. The younger sister first tried the throne room, but the older sister wasn't there. She then proceeds to check her sister's bedroom, but she wasn't there either. However, for reasons known to her, the younger sister was actually relieved when her sister's bedroom lacked its occupant. But after all of that searching and after knocking her signature "shave and a haircut" knock, the younger sister found the queen in her study. After the queen allowed her entrance, her sister decided it was time to tell her the good news.

"Elsa? Elsa? ELSA?!" the princess shouted happily. Her excitement could not have been kept in much longer. She was afraid she was going to explode from joy.

The queen, apparently name Elsa, was also looking like she was ready to explode. But more likely due to boredom of paperwork, instead of happiness.

"Yes, Anna?" Elsa responded. Her voice slightly perked up due to the fact that her sister and best friend was here with her.

Anna was many things, and stupid wasn't one of them. She noticed how tired Elsa looked. Elsa's usually neat and properly braided platinum blonde hair was beginning to unravel. Her exquisite aqua blue gown was a bit wrinkled. And most importantly to Anna's horror, she was stuck with a crapload of paperwork.

It also didn't help that Elsa was naturally introverted. With the news she is about to spill, Anna did not want to scare off her sister by placing her in an uncomfortable situation. So Anna decided to play it cool and start the conversation with some light teasing.

And today's teasing was really, really lousy puns.

"Ice day? Ain't it?" Anna asked, smirking.

Elsa couldn't help but roll her eyes. "Ice puns again, Anna?" But secretly, Elsa was relieved. As she has power over the ice and snow, she was always nervous about killing her baby sister with them. But since, Anna was comfortable enough to playfully tease about "them", she knew she had no reason to be afraid anymore.

"So how are you feeling, Elsa?" her sister asked. "Chill?"

Elsa lightly laughed, covering her mouth her hand. "Seriously Anna, I'm a bit busy."

"Hey, don't give me the COLD shoulder, again. You've done that for far too long."

Elsa sighed because Anna's claim was true. But then again, she thought to herself "I wonder if love can refreeze a heart?" Elsa loved the princess dearly, but even love has limits. So Elsa decided to end this back and forth, "Is there something you need, Anna?"

Well, here it is. No turning back. Anna proceeded "Yes… you… and I for that matter… but mostly you need to have more friends."

Elsa's smile faltered a bit. Because she basically isolated herself from the rest of the world, she never had a lot of friends. Even before the isolation, Anna was still her only friend.

Anna hadn't finished talking, though. "It's great that you started opening up to me and some other people again. But, I think it's now time we help you open up to people…. More"

Yeah, Anna did not have a way with words.

But then again, neither did Elsa where personal, and not business, conversations are involved. "Anna, these things take time," she explained. "I can't just dive into crowds and start talking up a storm like a professional diver."

Anna looked at her sister in confusion. "But you talk to diplomats, dukes, and the nobility, all the time in meetings."

"Because that is what I've spent years training to do. Those conversations, meetings, and anything else does not require a strong personal connection. I don't think I am ever going to be able to connect to someone OTHER than you."

Anna then noticed that a bit of snow flurries begin to appear. She also noticed the sadness and lack of confidence on her sister's face.

So with deciding to take the bullet, Anna explained "Don't worry, sis. I am going to be right there with you. As I said, I could use more friends as well. I mean, you can never have too many. It's not like you can die of a heart attack from too many friends and…."

She stopped rambling when she noticed that the queen had a "get to the point" expression across her face.

"Sorry, anyway remember, our cousin, Rapunzel? She came to your coronation."

"Yes."

"Well, I've got a letter from her saying we can hang out with her and five of her friends. From what she wrote about them, they're all super nice. So whaddaya say?"

Elsa still had the look of insecurity. After all, getting to know six complete strangers at once didn't sound like an idea she wanted to entertain. "I don't know, Anna…"

So Anna decided to do a little bit of bribing. "If you do this, I'll help you with the paperwork."

"Well…." Elsa sighed.

"From the letter I've received. Some of Rapunzel's friends are future leaders of lands themselves. You can use that find more kingdoms to trade with," Anna explained. She knew how much Elsa wanted to Arendelle to succeed. And what better way than networking.

"Ummmm but…" Elsa's resolve was weakening. Anna knew this. She had the prey on sight. Now all that was left is to go in for the kill.

And she knew what that killshot was. "If you do this, I'll also reduce the number of ice puns."

That did it. "If you insist, then I will meet them."

Anna could have done backflips then and there, but refrained from doing so as the last time she tried, she landed on her head.

"YAY!" Anna squeed. "I'm so excited! Because for the first time in forever, they'll be even more music and even MORE love!"

While Elsa was also excited, she still kept herself reserved. For one reason, she was the queen. For the other reason, she was still afraid.

_What if they don't like me?_

_What if they think I'm a freak or a monster?_

_What if they're the freaks and monsters?_

_But what if they do like me and I mess it up somehow?_

"I'm looking forward to it, as well," was all Elsa could say. Might as well not worry her sister. Her sister who did so much for her already.

So the sisters sat down and Anna decided to help with the paperwork as promised. Hopefully, she would stay awake.

But she still had one more tease in her, "Just don't FREEZE up, sis."

"ANNA!"

Anna smirked. "Okay okay. That was my last ice pun for a while."

* * *

**_That's it for now. R&R. Constructive criticism will be highly appreciative_**


	2. Tales of The First Get Together

_**Well here it is. The next part. Rapunzel and Flynn totally parroted my thoughts the at end. lol I hope I got all the characters at least 75% matching their canon personalities. Tell me how well I did on the personalities at least.**_

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**Tales of The First Get Together  
**A few days later, Elsa and Anna traveled to their destination: The Kingdom of Corona. Corona was bigger than Arendelle. Its flag was purple with a yellow sun on it.

"Corona is also the word for a type of plasma that surrounds the sun," Elsa muttered to herself.

"What?" Anna asked. "Did you say something?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all."

Its royal family recently rediscovered their missing daughter, the sister's cousin, Rapunzel

_So at least at I will have SOMETHING to talk about to SOMEONE_ Elsa thought.

As the sisters moved closer and closer to Castle Corona, with their bodyguards in tow, they had to go through a very active village. Elsa still had to keep her nerves about herself. They don't know she was the Snow Queen, after all.

_The townspeople might burn me at the stake. And who knows what they will do to Anna!_

Anna, sensing the queen's nervousness, held Elsa's hand, which relaxed her greatly

Continuing walking by, they passed people dancing in public, four little girls braiding each other's hair, someone drawing the Corona insignia in chalk on the sidewalk, and an overweight mime. If Anna wasn't on a super duper mission to get more friends for her and Elsa, she would have participated in those other activities. Especially whatever the mime was doing.

_This is what I get for loving my sister too damn much. Not that I'm complaining. Why should I complain? I got my sister again. And I'm going to help her open up and make friends. And I'm going to be so happy and when I see Elsa smiling and not thinking she's an abhorrent failure. And… oh god, even in my head, I ramble._

Of course, everyone who knew Anna thought she was easily friendly. And while that may have been, she was also having the same anxieties as Elsa. They may not have been as strong as Elsa's, but they were still there. Thinking you're the family reject and once being so desperate for love can do that to you.

After a rather uncharacteristically quiet walk (Anna would have been talking nonstop about this), Elsa and Anna found themselves in front of the gates of Castle Corona. The guards at the front have been notified of their arrival, so the sisters were allowed to enter without much fuss.

But Elsa couldn't help but wonder if she saw two giant, winged lizards, one black and the other one blue, roaming near an open area.

Despite the castle being huge and majestic on the outside, on the inside, it was a humbling brownish color. As the sisters were lead down the hallway, they could hear laughter. Fortunately it sounded like it was coming from fairly young adults, so at the very least, at least age wasn't going to be an issue.

They arrived at the door that was hiding the laughter.

Finally after what like an eternity of silence, Anna said to the servant that escorted them, "You can leave us now. We'll handle it from here."

The servant bowed and went on his merry way leaving the sisters alone in front of the door.

Anna, yet again, spoke first. "Are you ready to go in?"

"No," Elsa said as she reached for the doorknob. Might as well get this over with.

She opened the door.

"And that's the story of how I died," which came from an adult male voice.

Partially because they didn't want to interrupt and partially because of the fact the statement confused them, Anna and Elsa stayed in silence for a bit and simply took in the colorful cast of characters.

The voice came from a roguish, handsome adult male in his mid-20s. He had brown hair and an eternal smirk across his face.

"That was an interesting story which you told twice already. And like last time, I think it's a shame that the death wasn't permanent."

That darkly humorous statement came from a blonde girl whose bangs is covered one of her eyes. And from the way she dressed, it was safe to assume that she's a Viking.

"Astrid!"

That voice came from another blonde woman, wearing a pink blouse and with hair too long for her own good. Of course, the sisters recognized her as Rapunzel.

"Yeah I agree with the Viking. Amazingly," said a curly, redheaded ginger in a simple green dress. Elsa was able to deduce that she likes archery because…. she was a carrying a bow.

The Viking girl, Astrid, simply rolled her eyes. "Well whoop de doo," she said sarcastically and with a bit of temper in her tone.

Anna decided it was a good a time as ever to speak. "Hello everyone," she said as she smiled and gave a chipper wave.

Everyone turned to look at the two royals, including a brown haired boy who stayed quiet in all of this as well.

Anna continued, "My name is Anna and this is my older sister, Elsa."

_Here goes nothing_. "Pleased to meet your acquaintances," Elsa said simply.

The quiet boy finally spoke. "Umm… hello. Welcome to our little group. My name's Hiccup."

Rapunzel decided to run up and hold the sisters by their hands. "Hello, my cousins. It's so nice to see you again!" she squealed jumping in place.

"I guess you two are all right," Astrid said. "You don't look more than annoying as the guys I know back home."

"Hi, the name's Merida." The curly, red headed announced.

It was roguish male's turn to speak. "Hi… the name's Flynn Ryder. How you doing…. I'm just messing with you. My name's Eugene. Rapunzel's my wife. And I also saw two at your coronation. Shame we couldn't meet then though."

Elsa was beginning to feel more at ease. These weren't bad people at all. In fact, they could get along quite…

"So Rapunzel told us that you control the ice and snow," Hiccup said. Not knowing the full situation of the Snow Queen's psyche.

At that moment, the room dropped in temperature a few degrees.

_Great, I knew this would happen. They'll think I'm a freak._

_Maybe I can get out of here while I still can._

As Anna held Elsa close to her to cheer her up… Rapunzel did the same thing.

"Cousin Elsa," she began shivering a bit. "It's okay, you're among friends. No one's going to hurt you. And you won't hurt anyone."

"Umm yeah, sorry about that… OW" Hiccup said before he yelped at apparently nothing. Anna looked at him a bit. He was a strange one. But continue to pour her focus onto Elsa.

"Really?" Elsa whimpered as if she were a child again. It really did bother her to be so self-conscious and afraid.

"Yeah, you're among friends, here" Eugene said spreading out his arms. "Rapunzel has magical hair, Merida sees fiery ghosts, the two Vikings over there train dragons."

Elsa's lit up, "I thought I saw two dragons outside."

"Yeah, they belong to us," Astrid answer.

"Yeah, we train dragons where we're from and…. OW! Stop hitting me with that staff!" Hiccup randomly said.

Elsa and Anna looked at each other and then at the strange Viking boy yelling at no one. However, Elsa did recall something.

"Rapunzel, your letter said that we would be meeting five of your friends. However, there only seem to be four here."

"Oh him, well… OW! Really, you can't wait a few more seconds?" Hiccup yelped.

Seeing what was happening, Rapunzel decided to explain herself, "Alright, Anna, Elsa. Try to reimagine a wintery childhood wonder."

"Childhood…" Elsa began.

"Wonder?" Anna finished.

"Yeah, that's the only way that you're going to see him," Merida explained.

So the sisters followed the strange request of imagining their wintery, childhood wonder: Which included building snowmen, building snowmen, and building armies of snowmen.

They really liked to build snowmen.

When they opened their eyes, they saw a silver haired boy with a staff waving at them with a cheeky smirk on his face.

"Wait what…" Anna wondered. "Who are you?"

"The name's Jack. Jack Frost," he explained. He then gave an overexaggerated bow. "You must be Anna and you must be Elsa. Nice to meet another person who can use ice magic."

A shocked look came across Elsa's face. "You have ice magic as well?"

"Well, it's in the name," he said as blast a bit of ice at a wall.

"You see, you have nothing to worry about, sis," Anna smiled as she wrapped her hand around Elsa's arm.

Silently, Elsa was relieved. She was among people who practice magic, saw the supernatural, or trained monstrous flying creatures. So they're never going to think she's an unholy abomination. However, the fear of hurting them or worse, the fear they won't like her personally, still lingers in her mind.

But for now, she could relax.

"Well now that everybody met everybody," Hiccup said. "There's nowhere to go up."

"This is either going to be the start of a beautiful friendship… or a slow descent into madness," Eugene mocked.

"You can say that again," Astrid rang.

Rapunzel decided to finish by taking that statement literally, "This is either going to be the start of a beautiful friendship… or a slow descent into madness."

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_**Okay for intent and purposes, here are the major changes from some of the stuff that's actual canon:  
Jack lived and died 500 years ago instead of 300 years ago. He became a Guardian around the time of Tangled. So the events of RoTG didn't happen in modern time but the story is still the "same." I did this so that Jaime's belief in Jack Frost would not have lost its value.  
Also Rapunzel's hair can grow and is still blonde.  
**_


	3. Tales of Tropical Freeze

_**Elsa and Hiccup are excited for a new book, Jack can't fathom the plot of the story, Anna wants to catch up on years of being an annoying younger sister, and Merida is still platonic tsuntsuning over the viking characters (don't really viking hate is not gonna be her only character trait in these)**_

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**Tales of Tropical Freeze**  
"So aren't the guys wonderful, Elsa?"

"I suppose they are, Anna."

Elsa and Anna were freshening up in the castle's powder room. Elsa wanted some time for herself. She didn't dislike those guys; on the contrary, they seemed like good people to be around. However, being naturally withdrawn from people for a long time tends to make one exhausted when around a bunch of people you just met. So Elsa decided to take it slow.

However, Anna just couldn't stop pushing. "Sooner or later, you're going to have to say more than a few words towards them."

"I know. I know," Elsa replied as they exited the power room. "But what could I possibly talk about?"

"Oh oh! How about the ice palace? You can't go wrong with the ice palace."

"I'd rather save that for when I get to know them better. Not to mention, simply describing it wouldn't do it much justice."

Anna sighed. "True."

As the girls round the corner that lead to the outside, they previously recalled that Astrid had decided to head home early and Eugene had matters to attend to. So it was Hiccup, Jack, Merida, and Rapunzel who remained.

"Don't worry, sis. I'll still be here with you," Anna said. She chuckled. "I mean, I finally get to tell embarrassing stories of you. It's what every younger sister dreamed of."

Elsa just sighed. She didn't even think that she had the luxury of having embarrassing yet warming memories.

As the sisters opened the door that led outside, they heard a rather girly shriek. Anna and Elsa quickly turned their heads toward the source of the noise. It turned out that Merida was blind folded and firing at apples...

Apples that were placed above Hiccup's head.

"Did I get it? Or did I accidentally kill Hiccup? Either situation is fine with me," Merida said as she lifted the blindfold from her eyes. But she saw that she hit the apple.

"Ha, got it! Three times in a row, just like I said."

"Hey you did," Jack replied. "I guess you're right. If we've had betted money you would have… gotten nothing because I have no need for money."

Hiccup wasn't as excited about this insanity, however.

"Well now that Merida has finished playing William Tell, I'm going over there and question my life decision of hanging out with you guys."

Rapunzel shook her head. She sometimes wished that Merida and Jack wouldn't pick on Hiccup so much. But with Merida's hatred of Vikings and Jack Frost being a trickster, she doesn't see them letting up very soon. Her attention was diverted when she saw Elsa and Anna.

"Hey guys. Enjoyed the powder room?" she asked.

"Yes," Elsa answered. "Thank you for the hospitality."

"You're welcome. So is there something you two want to do?"

At that moment, all eyes fell onto Elsa. Her heartbeat increased twofold and she was starting to panic.

_It seems like the universe likes to avoid giving me one moment of peace_.

Anna sensed her sister's discomfort. "Guys, whatever Elsa wants to do, it will be a blast to do."

_Great, now I have even more pressure put onto me_ Elsa thought.

So she decided to try this as if she were talking to stuffy diplomats. From the looks of the four teenagers, she concluded that Merida and Jack Frost were adventurous. She saw that Hiccup was a bit exhausted of being put in imminent danger. Finally, she saw Rapunzel simply smiling waiting for her cousin to offer a suggestion.

So it couldn't hurt to try.

"Well, there is book I've been longing to read. It's called _The Monkeys and Their Frozen Island_."

When she didn't get an immediate response, Elsa silently panicked again.

_Good going, you failure. A book? Really?_

_Look at these people. They're more likely to brave danger itself than read about it in a book. Why don't you just run and hide…._

But her self-loathing was interrupted by a voice.

"I wanted to read that book for a while," Hiccup said.

Elsa perked up slightly, "Really?"

"Me too," Rapunzel joined in. "I love reading."

Of course, not everyone was excited about this prospect. Anna wanted to explore. She didn't want to read books now, especially since she liked _Chimpanzees That Balance in a Sphere_ better.

Her sister's needs came first, but she decided to playfully tease the three book readers. "Well gosh you guys are a bunch of nerds, aren't you? Tee hee."

Elsa knew Anna was joking around. She softly shoulder bumped into her.

Anna wasn't the only one confused by this, however. For different reasons, Jack didn't understand this either. A few days ago, Hiccup told him about the plot of the book, which had left Jack speechless. Surely this couldn't be true.

So he decided to ask Elsa, "Isn't that the story where a bunch of animal Vikings freeze an island and the monkeys want to thaw it?"

"Yes."

"And you think that's a GOOD thing?" Jack spazzed. "You're an ice user. It's like if Hiccup wanted to read a story about dragon slaying."

Hiccup simply raised an eyebrow and then rolled his eyes.

Merida offered a different explanation. "C'mon Jack. The villains are a bunch of sleazy, pillaging Vikings. This can't be a bad story."

_What is with this girl?_ Anna thought. She decided to ask out loud, "Merida, if you hate Vikings so much, why are you hanging with Hiccup and Astrid?"

"I like to hope that Astrid's dragon will eat her and Hiccup will take one my arrows into his remaining knee."

_Jeez remind myself to remain on her good side._ Anna thought with her mouth a gape.

"Yeah Merida is something else," Hiccup reasoned.

"Riiiiiiiiiiiiight," Anna drawled. So she decided to change the subject back to the book. "So Elsa, do you want to know if that infamous crocodile dictator is the main villain?"

"No!" Elsa snapped. "I do not want you spoiling the ending like you did the last time I wanted to read."

The last time Anna spoiled a book for Elsa, it almost caused a 2nd eternal winter. To be fair to Anna, she did want to build a snowman.

Meanwhile, Jack was still confused. "You're an ice user. How can you enjoy this? Enjoy the snow setting. Embrace it."

"I can relate to the characters," Elsa explained. "I know what it's like to want to thaw out one's homeland."

_Wait…. Did I….. just open up to these guys?_

Elsa looked around. So far, no one seemed to be judging her because of her statement. Well, Jack had a serious look of genuine concern on his face that was more along the lines of confusion than scolding. If he was still capable of breathing, he probably would have been hyperventilating.

Anna could not stop digging, however. "Come on you guys. Let me tell if The Crocodile Dictator is in the story."

Hiccup proceeded to cover his ears. "Lalala I can't hear you, Anna."

"Anna," Elsa said sternly. "If you spoil the story, I will freeze your mouth shut."

Anna, and everyone else, was shocked at Elsa's statement. "But you can control your powers."

"I didn't mean 'on accident'," Elsa smirked.

"Fine, I know when I'm beaten. Have fun reading."

The group, minus Anna, prepared to get ready to go to the nearest bookstore. Anna was lost in her thoughts.

_Wow, she willingly offered a suggestion on what to do._

_She put her interests on the line_

_She opened up to other people about her past_

Anna smiled. Her sister was starting to warm up to these people. She knew what she had to do.

_Elsa might kill me for this. But it'll probably be worth it_

So as loud as she could, she yelled "THE ANSWER OF WHETHER OR NOT THE CROCODILE KING IS IN THE BOOK IS…."

**_1 hour later_**

Elsa enjoyed the sound of a page turning. It was one of few non-Anna things to relax her. But today, the thing that relaxed her was that her new friends were all enjoying the copies of the book they bought for themselves.

Elsa smiled, "This book is exhilarating."

Hiccup agreed. "Yeah. I can't put this book down. I mean that ice dragon. Wow. I can't wait to read this to Toothless."

Jack was a little more somber but still grinning," This is a good story… even if I don't agree with the plot."

Merida weighed in her opinion. "I'm at the part where they face a giant seal. He's quite the character."

Meanwhile Rapunzel was a bit sad, but not about the book. "Elsa, don't you think you were a bit too hard on your sister?"

"I'm just glad she stopped Anna from blabbing the ending before it was too later," Hiccup defended. "But how would she know about the ending anyway? Does she even know?"

"I didn't want to risk it," Elsa explained. "But I'll apologize to Anna as soon as this book stops being so good."

Jack turned a page, read a bit, and said "Nope. Still good."

"I'll ask Anna if she's okay," Rapunzel offered. "Hey Anna?! Are you okay?!"

Anna was okay for everything except her mouth. It was sealed shut by a block of ice.

"MMMMM! MMPH! MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM" she yelled!

Elsa couldn't help but giggle and sassily said. "Yeah she's okay."

However, if she could have, Anna would have smiled. She saw her sister content with being around others. She saw Elsa totally relaxed, totally happy, and for the first time in a long time totally proud of herself.

_Yeah it was totally worth it_

* * *

_**Cookie to whoever guess the game I based "**__Chimpanzees That Balance in a Sphere"_ on.


	4. Tales of Booger Eating

_**Anna asks her male friends if all dudes really do eat whatever they pick from their noses. But due to poor communication, they think she is talking about something else that's even less... pure.**_

* * *

**Tales of Booger Eating**  
It was a week since Anna and Elsa had met their new friends and Anna saw a different side in side of her sister. Sure the queen was still reserved, but Anna could sense that Elsa was a bit more relaxed about life as Elsa had a bit more spring in her step. Anna felt that the good times were never going to end as she sat on top of the world.

And then Elsa had to go away on business for a few days.

See, Elsa had managed to get a trade agreement with Corona the first time they were there. And with her newly built resolve, Elsa had decided that she must go to Berk and DunBroch for a week to get much needed trade agreements. This meant that Elsa would have to sail across the sea all by her lonesome. The end result was that Anna was literally clinging to Elsa's leg.

"Anna, you're going to have to let go," Elsa sadly said.

"No!" Anna pouted. "The guards are going to have to pry me from you and drag me away kicking and screaming. Don't think I won't do it!"

Elsa knew how Anna felt as she felt the same way. Neither one of them wanted to get on a boat ever since an accident on sea took their parents' lives away. Nonetheless, Elsa knew she had to do this.

"I'm sorry, Anna," Elsa sighed.

"Take me with you! Please!" Anna pleaded.

"Anna, at least one of us has to stay here. One member of the royal family still has to keep an eye on things here."

"Then get Olaf to do it!" Anna said in desperation. "Technically, he's your son and my son-nephew!"

Elsa lovingly rolled her eyes.

"Anna, I'll be fine. If worse comes to worse, I can freeze a tidal wave so it won't capsize a boat."

Anna realizes that this was true and began to calm down. "Fine. But if you die, I'll hit you harder than I did Hans."

"I'll make sure to not to die then," Elsa chuckled.

The sisters hugged each other farewell. And then Elsa left the castle grounds to head to lands unknown.

_This separation is going to hurt me more than you know_. Each sister thought to themselves.

The next day, Rapunzel came over to find Anna looking glum. So she tried to cheer her up. She told Anna that Eugene and Hiccup were currently somewhere in the town. She also reminded her that they had a double date planned. Rapunzel was very excited that she would meet Anna's boyfriend.

Speaking of which, Anna was currently peeved at her boyfriend, but it took her mind off Elsa for a while.

_Stupid, poopy pants Kristoff._ Anna thought. _How can he not tell me if what he said about guys eating whatever they pick from their noses is actually true? EVERY time I try to get a straight answer from him, he teases me with more vague results. But it can't be true, right? It would make half the world….. extremely disgusting. Stupid poopy pants Kristoff and his poopy pants ice job. Stupid poopy pants Elsa and her poopy pants queenly duties._

_Stupid poopy pants everything._

However, Anna was a clever one. She left the castle to find Hiccup and Eugene.

_Now that I have male friends, HUMAN male friends, they can tell me the truth._

She went into town. It did not take long for her to find the two guys as children were crowding around in a group and aweing about seeing a dragon up close. So that meant that Toothless was here as well. Anna thought that the nightfury was a big sweetie. She could hear Eugene who was apparently winding down from telling one of his many tall tales.

"And that's how my wife's little, annoying frog creature turned into this giant, ferocious dragon."

The kids 'ooh' and 'ahh' until they saw Hiccup shaking his head no behind Eugene. Then the children snickered.

"Isn't Rapunzel's pet a chameleon?" Hiccup asked.

Eugene shrugged, "I don't know. I guess."

"Yoo-hoo! Eugene? Hiccup? Toothless?" Anna waved. The children proceeded to clumsily and cutely bow to the princess.

"Your mouth seemed to have thawed fine, it seems," Hiccup noticed.

"Yeah, Elsa finished the book she was reading so she melted the ice from my mouth. But now the servants joke that they rather enjoyed the peace and quiet when my mouth was frozen," Anna said as she rolled her eyes.

"Princess Anna, can you play with us?" One small girl asked.

"I will. But first, I need to ask my friends something."

"Well, shoot," Eugene replied.

"Do all men…." Anna began to say. But she couldn't actually describe the action. It was still too disturbing for her. "Do it?"

"Uhhhh… it?" Hiccup wondered. What could she mean by "it"?

"Don't make me say it out loud. It's completely disturbing even thinking it. Do all men do it?" Anna whined.

Hiccup was starting to think that Anna was thinking about something much more…. hands on…. in an area nowhere NEAR the nose.

But Hiccup was still partially in denial, "Please tell me you're talking about scratching an armpit."

Anna was getting a bit impatient, "No. I'm talking about IT."

And now whatever bit denial Hiccup had was mercilessly squashed. Meanwhile, Toothless made a face that said "You're on your own, buddy."

_Is this a secret thing that's in some kind of guy code?_ Anna thought._ Is THAT why no one is giving me a straight answer?_

"Mr. Eugene?" One of the children asked. "What's doing it?"

Eugene didn't know what was more awkward: The fact that Anna asked, the fact that the child asked, the fact that the other children started parroting what the first child asked, or the fact that some of the adults were starting to give weird glances.

"Ummm kids, why don't you go wait over there until the princess agrees to play with you," Eugene said. The children did what they were told.

Now Eugene sadly had the time to focus on Anna's VERY weird question. "Well…. I can't say for all men but…. Oh boy."

"I think I need an adult," Hiccup said. "This conversation is making me very uncomfortable."

_These two must do it as well._ Anna thought. _Why else would they keep dodging the question?_

She asked out loud. "This isn't a hard question to answer. Do you two do it?"

"And now I'm even more uncomfortable. As if that was even possible," Hiccup sighed.

Just then, like a miracle, Jack Frost appeared. He always did enjoy popping down to places unexpectedly to people who can see him.

"Hey guys. Eugene, Hiccup, Anna." Jack greeted. "Hey Anna, your mouth thawed."

Well if the other two weren't going to be much help, she might as well as Jack. "Jack, do all men, including you, do it?"

Of course, Jack was not thinking she was talking about eating dried up snot you find in your nose. He was thinking that she was thinking about something else.

And here's the answer: "Well… yeah. All men do it. I do it twice a day. Once in the morning. Once in the evening. Sometime even 4 times in a day when I'm REALLY bored."

His friends just looked at him with mouths agape. Hiccup and Toothless took 7 steps back away from the winter spirit.

"Oh come on!" Eugene yelled. "That can't be healthy!" Then he stopped yelling and blushed a deep red when he noticed those random passersby were looking at him weirdly again. They can't see Frost.

"It has nothing to do with health," Jack explained. "It has to do with me getting a little fun and excitement in my life."

"You could always find a female spirit," Eugene suggested. This is just getting weird.

"What reason would I have for a female spirit when a guy spirit can provide just as much excitement in…."

"OH MY GOD!" Anna shouted, finding her voice again. "Jack, you disgust me!"

"Yeah, me too," Hiccup muttered.

Once again, Jack was confused. "What?"

"How can you eat whatever you find in your nose four times a day?" Anna said, finally revealing what "it" was.

"Yeah!" Eugene started. Then he realized, "Wait what?"

Hiccup was equally confused. "Wait, you're talking about eating…. boogers?"

"Yeah of course I was," Anna admitted. Though she still wanted to throw up a bit in her mouth saying that out loud. "Why? What did you think that I was talking about?"

"Uhhhhhh…. The same thing," Eugene lied. "So to answer your question, no. No guy eats whatever he picks out of his nose."

Anna sighed and felt a great relief, as if a planet's weight of worry was finally lifted from her shoulders.

"Oh thank goodness," Anna said. "Now my boyfriend will stop teasing me about it. Oh and Eugene, are you still up for that double date?"

"Yeah."

"Great," Anna happily said. "Well, I've made the kids wait long enough. Tootles, everybody."

Anna happily skipped away to play with the children. Meanwhile, the guys were lost in their own thoughts.

"So she was talking about picking noses?" Eugene recalled. "Then again, what kind of girl asks about what they thought she was asking? Anna's weird like that. But she can't be that weird."

"Yeah," Hiccup said. "I still can't believe she wasn't talking about mas…"

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" Jack interrupted. "She was talking about eating boogers? I thought she was talking about snowball fights. Two snowball fights a day can make any man have a weird, happy feeling inside of him."

Hiccup just looked at Jack with utter disbelief.

"Also, she always sings about wanting to build a snowman," Jack explained. "I was wondering why she think that snowball fights are disturbing."

The spirit of fun stopped talking when he noticed Hiccup weirdly staring at him.

"What?"

"You still disgust me, Jack Frost." Was all Hiccup could say.

"What?" wondered a forever confused Jack Frost.


	5. Tales of Being Hit On

_**Ladies, have you ever tried to advance on your career, work on some hobby, or just simply wanted to relax when some slimy guy you want nothing to do with kept making unwanted advances at you? And the word 'no' lost to him?**_

Well watch how Elsa, who has the not so greatest of social skills and the powers to chase any unwanted attention away, deal with it. She came to Berk for the betterment of her country and was stuck dealing with poor advances of a teenage boy.

* * *

**Tales of Being Hit On**  
Elsa recently reached the docks of the village she was supposed to arrive at: Berk. According to Hiccup, it was 12 days north of Hopeless and few degrees south of Freezing to death and currently located on the Meridian of Misery.

_Well, at least if I was still a miserable little mess, I could have run away here. This place understands me._ Elsa lightly chuckled at her sudden dark humor.

But honestly, Elsa did think that Berk looked like a quiet, decent village. She knew that Berk had fishing, hunting, and a charming view of sunsets. But currently, she was rather interested in the domestication of animals. While she and Anna wanted something like a dog or cat, they never realized that dragons could be tamed as pets.

And right on cue, a pudgy brown dragon with very tiny wings hovered right in front of her. Elsa's bodyguard raised up his sword, but Elsa ordered him to stand down. Elsa noticed that the dragon, which she thought looked impossible to be aerodynamic, was looking at a rock lying next to her. So Elsa picked up the rock and the dragon happily ate it. Elsa smiled when the dragon allowed her to pet it.

_It's kind of cute in an ugly sort of way._

Elsa eventually walked around for a bit until she found the man she was looking for: Chief Stoick the Vast. Stoick was a large, bearded, intimidating looking Viking but his eyes showed his competency as leader. The kind of leader that Elsa wished to be someday.

"Ah Queen of Arendelle," he said. "It is an honor to the Isle of Berk."

Elsa curtseyed. "The honor is all mine." To be honest, she preferred the company of village leaders and chiefs of humble territories compared to the nobility of the big kingdoms. The chiefs didn't give Elsa the need to find Anna and make her punch them in the face.

"Shall, we begin the trade negotiations?" Elsa asked.

"Yes yes. Come this way," Stoick said as he turned and went toward his house. Elsa saw Astrid riding her dragon but the dragon rider didn't notice her.

_Oh well, I'll talk to her later when the meeting is over_

However, one dragon rider DID see Elsa: young, fairly muscular Viking male who had ram horns on his helmet.

Astrid was currently feeding Stormfly cooked chicken until the Viking male ran up to her.

"Astrid? Astrid?" he panted.

"Yes Snotlout?"

"Who was that girl?"

"What girl?"

Snotlout described the girl: fair skin, whitish blonde hair, blue gown, and Stoick called her a queen.

So unless it was all a horrible coincidence, Astrid knew who he was talking about, "Oh you must mean Queen Elsa of Arendelle. Yeah Hiccup and I know her."

Now Snotlout was intrigued. "Elsa, huh? A good sounding name for a good looking dame."

"Uhhh… yeah"

"I'm serious," Snotlout explained. "Just give me a few seconds and she'll be swept off her feet because of me."

Astrid couldn't help but try to stifle a laugh.

"And what makes you so sure that I can't, Astrid?"

Well other than the fact that he had no chance, Astrid decided to count the ways, "First off, she's older than you."

"So? I don't mind a cougar."

After she almost threw up three days' worth of food, Astrid was faced with a dilemma. On one hand, Snotlout would no longer try to woo her. But on the other hand, she would feel horrible if Snotlout tried to charm Elsa with his sleaze ball ways.

Selflessness won out, "That's just one reason, Snotlout. She's also smarter than you. She's more mature than you. She's more responsible than you. She's neater than you. She's more tolerable to be around than you…"

Astrid gave every detail on why the pairing Elslout (nice huh?) would never work.

This explanation lasted for over two hours.

And Astrid STILL wasn't finishing counting the reason, "…She doesn't make bodily noises when she eats like you do. She's less stubborn than you. She was never suspended from school unlike you. She's cleaner than you. She's…"

"Alright! Alright!" Snotlout said. "But Astrid, just because she's not perfect like me doesn't mean anything. I'm not picky."

Astrid always did wonder if Snotlout's existence proved that the phrase "in one ear and out the other" could be literal. However, Hiccup, for whatever reason, considered Snotlout a valuable member of the Academy, so no matter how much she wanted it to happen, she couldn't exactly let Snotlout get himself injured because he bothered a girl that could freeze him in a block of ice.

So, ever the Good Samaritan, Astrid gave the most critical reason why Snotlout should not try, "Snotlout there's something you should know. Elsa has this ability where she can summon…"

"Jeez Astrid," the arrogant boy snapped. "I think I know what your problem is. You're totally jealous! You're nervous that Elsa is going to go gaga over me and you want to keep me all too yourself."

If looks could kill, Astrid's face could have even give the most hardened madman the sweet preference of oblivion.

"I mean, I can't help it, Astrid," Snotlout continued. "I'm sadly not a one woman Viking."

"You know what?" Astrid deadpanned. "I wish you luck on your attempt to ask her out."

"Yes!" Snotlout exclaimed though he wondered why he would ever need Astrid's blessing. "Here I come, Elsa. You won't know what hit you."

Snotlout walked back to the village while Astrid and Stormfly stared at each other.

"Idiot." Astrid muttered. Stormfly nodded in agreement.

* * *

It was turning out to be a great day for Elsa. She explored a new land. She met dragons who were not as scary as she thought, and she also had gotten the trade agreement.

"The partnership of Arendelle and Berk shall be unbreakable. Good day, Your Majesty," Stoick's words echoed in her head.

Elsa ordered the guard to go back to the ship. After all, the people of Berk were friendly. And the dragons were friendly. And it's not like she couldn't defend herself. So under her orders, the guard did as told.

The Snow Queen spent a few minutes walking through the village and taking in the sights. She heard some of the locals that the cold was rather bothersome this year, not that Elsa would have known. She saw two fraternal twins, a brother and sister, head-butt each other for some reason she probably wouldn't have understood.

But her tranquility was one hundred percent ruined when someone shouted for her. "Elsa! Hey!"

Elsa turned around to see a young Viking.

"Oh.. umm. Hello," Elsa curtseyed a bit in confusion. It's not every day that someone not Anna spoke so casually to her. "I'm sorry I don't believe we ever met."

"The name's Snotlout," the Viking teen said. "The toughest warrior in Berk!"

_Wow, people here do have weird names here_ Elsa thought. "Well Snotlout, it is a pleasure to meet your acquaintance."

"Of course it is," Snotlout said in arrogance. "If you're not too busy, how 'bout you and me spend a night in the town"

_Wait… is he asking me on a date? Because he's kind of annoying_

_Then again, someone actually finds me attractive enough to court. And he's not using it for political power. But he could be just trying to get another notch on his bed post…_

_It doesn't matter. So far, he's not coming off as being my type_

"I'm sincerely flattered," Elsa said. "But…"

Snotlout ignored the would-be rejection. "Come on, it'll be fun. I'll flex my muscles for you."

Elsa was dumbfounded, "What?"

_Maybe I should be thankful for locking myself up in my room during my teen years. _

"I can raze rocks with my dragon as we ride it."

_How is that a turn on?_ Elsa's thoughts were getting more and more panicked? It didn't help that her face and body language were showing signs of discomfort. "That won't be necessary," she nervously said.

But the idiot still wasn't listening, "I can tell you brave battle stories where I killed dragons… you know before Berk allied with them."

_Maybe it was a bad idea to leave Anna back at Arendelle. She would love punching this guy. He's thinking with his head and it's obviously not the head that houses the brain_. _I wish someone would help me._

Elsa was getting more and desperate to get away from this idiot. Bits of frost were starting to form on her fingertips. She needed to get out of here. "You don't have to do…"

Still thinking with his "other" head, Snotlout kept trying to woo her. "Oh I get it. You're one of those chicks who prefer having their man whisper sweet nothings to you." He moved closer to Elsa. "Well I can do that… baby."

_Damnit! Why did I give the guard the rest of the day off?_ Elsa was getting closer to having an anxiety attack. She did not like this boy. She saw ice form around the grass. But Snotlout was too enthralled to notice the damn ice. The perverted moron just simply won't take no for an answer.

_Great. The ONE TIME I want to scare someone off with my powers, he's too busy staring at my chest to notice._

Trying to keep all of her emotions bottled, she tried to let him down easily and quickly as possible so that she can get away from him. "S—Snotlout? I'm sure that you're a decent young man. And I'm sure you will find a woman who will like you the way you want her to like you. But that perfect girl… is not me."

_Please Please PLEASE go away now!_

Sadly he didn't. "Come on, babe. You may resist now, but you'll be putty in my hands when I tell you that I can do this..."

He whispered something into Elsa's ear.

And that something was the anvil that broke the camel's back.

Elsa screamed in a combination of fear, rage, and ice. "NO, YOU DISGUSTING PIG!"

* * *

Astrid was still taking care of Stormfly. Her spikes were sharpened. Her belly was full of chicken. Astrid couldn't wait to see the look on Hiccup's face when Stormfly outraced Toothless.

However, her thoughts were cut off when she began to shiver. "What the… What's with the sudden drop in temperature? As if it wasn't cold enough as it is…." She came to the realization. "Oh no…. that dumbass..."

Astrid saw Elsa walking towards her. She looked completely sad and drained of energy as she held herself in her arms.

"Hi Astrid," the queen said sullenly.

Astrid moved the bang that was covering her eye so she could see Elsa better, "Hi Elsa… that was you, wasn't it?"

Elsa sadly nodded.

"Snotlout was getting under your skin with his rancid pickup lines?"

Elsa nodded again. "I had my share of poor suitors throw themselves at me. But none as deplorable as your friend."

"He's less than a friend and more like a fellow inmate in a cell," Astrid smirked.

Elsa wasn't laughing though. "I may have… encased him… in block of ice. Which slid down a hill…. and into the ocean… and his head may still be face down in the water."

"I'll get him," Astrid explained. "And then we'll use his dragon to thaw him out of the ice. And since he has a big mouth, I think he can hold his breath so we won't worry about him drowning."

Elsa finally smiled. "You have my gratitude."

"No problem," Astrid smiled back. "But next time, just kick him in the groin. He'll get the message much faster… I think."

Elsa giggled. "I'll keep that in mind." But another thing dawned upon the Snow Queen. "I just hope Chief Stoick doesn't cancel the trade agreement when he learns what I've done to his greatest warrior."

Astrid gave her a catlike smirk. "Knowing Stoick, he'll give you a better bargain in the deal."

And the two young women had a heartfelt laugh.


	6. Tales of Grudges

_**Rapunzel and Eugene were going to have a nice double date with Anna and her current beau (Holy crap, continuity). However, Eugene learns that the past sometimes come back to bite you with the present providing even sharper teeth.**_

* * *

**Tales of Grudges  
**It was your normal night on the Corona-Arendelle border as a reindeer ran passed the scenery carrying a sleigh that held two people in it. One of the people was the very excited Anna. She could not have stopped bouncing around even if she tried and even when she almost fell out of the sleigh. The other person was a large mountain man that Anna proclaimed to be her boyfriend, Kristoff.

"Oh my gosh!" Anna squealed. "I'm so excited. Are you excited? This is my first double date. I get to have a double date like a normal girl. I always figured that I would have doubled with Elsa. But I don't think her pendulum swings that way…. or at all… Wait…"

She suddenly stopped her rambling. Kristoff wasn't as excited about this double date. For starters, the restaurant Anna and this Rapunzel girl selected was very high class and Kristoff was a humble ice picker. He could already feel the snobbish eyes staring down at him before he even walked through the door. But if this would make Anna happy, then he was not going to complain. From what Anna told him, Rapunzel was a sweet girl and her husband had a shady past but thankfully he reformed himself.

"I just hope this won't turn out to be a complete disaster," the mountain man admitted.

"Pshaw, don't worry if any stuff nobleman will give you the stink eye for courting me," Anna said as she side hugged Kristoff. "Just be yourself."

"But do you think that I look okay?" Kristoff asked. He did not have much in the name of formal wear as what he was currently wearing could be mistaken for casualwear.

"You ALWAYS look good," Anna smiled. She was wearing a gown similar to the design of her coronation dress but without the frills at the bottom

The couple said nothing afterward, simply enjoying each other's company. Meanwhile, Rapunzel and Eugene were already in the restaurant waiting for the rest of their party to show. The restaurant, which was currently almost full of customers, looked fancy, as two purple and gold colored fountains lay in the center of the building and Eugene wondered if he could have ever stolen those fountains to make a quick buck.

"Is this even us, Blondie?" Eugene asked, wearing a purple royal suit fit for a prince. "I mean, neither of us were raised in highbrow society."

Rapunzel knew her husband was right and quite frankly agreed with him. She primarily picked this restaurant because she knew that Anna was high society. It was also the one of the few restaurants that met the King Corona's seal of approval and Rapunzel had no chance of convincing him to allow a more humble diner or even the Snuggly Duckling. But at least they were granted permission to go without the need of bodyguards since Rapunzel and Eugene were masters in the art of frying pan fighting.

Rapunzel told Eugene all about what she knew about Anna's boyfriend. he apparently helped Anna to try and get Elsa to restore summer and became the Royal Ice Deliver as a reward. Eugene did not think that was really a thing. As a person, Anna's boyfriend was a loner, a bit a snarky, and was raised by trolls.

"Trolls?" Eugene blurted out.

"Eugene, we know a horse who commands the Corona Castle guards," Rapunzel countered. "Someone being raised by trolls should not be too hard to believe."

"If you say so."

"Besides, we're finally having a double date with a couple who aren't my parents," Rapunzel dreamily said. "Isn't it romantic? Will Anna find this romantic?"

"Didn't Anna admit that she was engaged to this guy after like two minutes?" Eugene wondered while smirking.

"Eugene, be nice. Besides, that was her last boyfriend. She's taking it slower with her current boyfriend."

"So they're gonna be engaged six minutes after they meet?" Eugene chuckled.

"Eugene!" Rapunzel sternly said.

"Fine, I'll be on my best behavior," Eugene let up. But he still had one more thing to ask. "Say, you think the boyfriend is a retired thief as well? You know, so we can have something to talk about."

Rapunzel groaned and as if on cue Anna and her boyfriend showed up to the table. Eugene thought that Anna's beau was staring at him suspiciously but he thought nothing of it. Though he did look familiar Eugene thought to himself. Rapunzel got of her seat and went to Anna and held her hands.

"Cousin Anna!" Rapunzel said. "You look great!"

"You look more great… well not great but greater and…." Anna rambled until she realized that she was. "And meet my boyfriend, Kristoff."

"Hello," he said pleasantly to Rapunzel. And when he faced Eugene he said in a more grumpy tone, "Hello."

Okay, Eugene knew something was wrong with this guy. And yet he still couldn't place his finger on what it could be.

Rapunzel was too excited and obvious to Kristoff's tone and Eugene. "Hey, Kristoff. I'm Rapunzel and this is my husband, Eugene."

"How you doing?" Eugene asked.

"I'm fine…. Flynn Rider!" Kristoff replied.

Rapunzel's eyes went wide and Eugene slouched a bit. This guy apparently knew Eugene back during his days as the renowned thief of Flynn Rider.

Even Anna was flabbergasted when she asked her trademark, "Wait…. What?"

_Who is Flynn Rider? You mean that one guy in a book Mama used to read to me? Why would Kristoff think Eugene is Flynn?_

"Do I know you?" Eugene wondered.

"Remember, Flynn? Five years ago? In the mountains? Something about medicine for reindeer?"

Anna said to Kristoff "What are you talking about?"

Rapunzel turned to her significant other. "What IS he talking about?"

All eyes were now on Eugene as he felt even more helpless than the time Rapunzel tied him up with her hair. "Beats me…"

Then he had an epiphany, "Oh I remember now. I scammed some shmuck who talked for his reindeer by giving him reindeer medicine. But it was really nothing more than leaves and dirt grounded up into a liquid."

Eugene laughed very hard recalling that story. As far as he thought, it was one of the better schemes he ever cooked up as it was so simple yet the payoff was amazing.

Then he saw the faces of his wife and their guests and suddenly he felt ashamed.

"Did I mention that I'm a changed man?" Eugene countered. "I'm on the straight and narrow now."

Eugene could feel the rage Kristoff had for him. Thankfully Anna decided to cool down the tension.

"Guys," she started. "As my sister would sing: the past is in the past. Let it go."

So the guys gave each other a silent truce… for now anyway. Other than that, the date went okay. Rapunzel and Anna did all the chatting while the guys stayed quiet. They only spoke when one of the girls spoke to them but they neither dared to speak to the other guy. Rapunzel asked Kristoff what it was like to live with trolls.

"Think of it as living with a bunch of happy ants who do not understand personal space," Kristoff explained before taking another bite of roast chicken.

"So it's like the guys at the Snuggly Duckling?"

"I… guess?" Kristoff obviously didn't know about the pub. "So what's with the skillets?"

"These?" Rapunzel said. "Well thanks to us, Corona learned that frying pans are an excellent weapon. In fact, THIS frying pan is how I met my Eugene."

"And I still have the bump to prove it," Eugene said as he rubbed his head.

"She should have hit you a bit harder," Kristoff muttered.

But he wasn't quiet enough as Anna spoke, in aghast, "Kristoff! Are you crazy?"

Eugene heard Kristoff's comment as well, "Well it seems like you haven't gotten any smarter."

"You're the 'cheat ya' part in my _Reindeers Are Better Than People_ song."

Eugene smirked as he saw Kristoff fuming, "Awww, you still have an unnatural love for your reindeer. You two should elope, societal standards be damned."

"EUGENE!" Rapunzel yelled. The other customers in the restaurant were beginning to stare in the direction of our… heroes?

"Well at least I didn't have to lie about my entire personality to get a girl!" Kristoff countered.

"Kristoff…" Anna said her head fell down onto the table. She could not believe this was happening. All she wanted was to have a normal double date like a normal girl would. Rapunzel and Eugene would meet Kristoff and all three would be the best of friends. And they would have continued double dating forever and ever until they were all old and wrinkly.

_Sure that dream would assume that Kristoff and I would ever get married in the first place. But it's still a nice dream._

When Anna came to, she heard the argument still going on as she heard Kristoff speak in a rather goofy voice while looking out the window. "Kick the loser's butt twice for me, Kristoff!"

_Oh God, not the Sven voice… NOW of all times!_

Rapunzel was straight up confused by Kristoff's change in tone, but Eugene was giggling like a drunkard as he knew the voice.

"Oh is your first lover out there, deer boy?" Eugene laughed. He then turned to Anna, "Hey Anna are you actually willing to be seen with a guy whose first wife is a moose?"

Something snapped inside Anna. It may be due to the fact that she was full of fatigue, Eugene had been a jerk to Kristoff in the past, he was still being mean to him in the present, or that she was basically called the second wife to someone who loves his reindeer. Either way, Anna grabbed Rapunzel's frying pan.

"WILL YOU SHUT IT ALREADY?" Anna yelled as she swung the pan at Eugene who went out cold.

Every patron stared at the four friends. Rapunzel could have sworn she someone say "You go girl."

But after the adrenaline wore off, Anna began to panic.

_Oh god, what if I accidentally started a war?! I mean I only assaulted the Prince Regent of Corona with a frying pan! Elsa's gonna kill me!_

"Well I would say this has been a fun date," Kristoff said. "But I would be lying. Looks like we're about to be thrown out now."

"Rapunzel, I am so SO sorry," Anna apologized. "Eugene was being a big jerk. And I saw the frying pan…. And I thought he would be okay since you hit him in the head with it three times when you met and…"

"It's okay," Rapunzel interrupted. "This isn't the first time Eugene has upset someone to the brink of violence. He opens his mouth a little too big sometimes. I'll have a talk with him."

"You do that," Kristoff snipped. "We'll be somewhere else."

Kristoff got out of his chair and left. He would rather have a little bit of dignity left and walk out rather than be thrown out.

"Kristoff don't just leave in a huff…." Anna said, but he was too far away to hear. "Ugh, I'll have to give him extra kisses tonight to calm his tantrum down. Not to mention to convince him that there are still decent people out there."

"Yeah," Rapunzel answered.

"Well, good bye, Rapunzel. Oh and sorry again," Anna said as she also head toward the exit leaving Rapunzel and an unconscious Eugene.

* * *

It was all a blur for Eugene. One minute he was poking fun at Kristoff and the next minute he found himself back in his bed at Castle Corona. Oh and there was a chameleon sticking his tongue down Eugene's ear.

"What, Pascal!" he shouted. "How would you like it if I stick my tongue down YOUR ear?"

Pascal simply rolled his eyes and crawled to Rapunzel who was sitting at the edge of the bed.

"Anyway what happened…?" Eugene said, but seeing his wife's sad look he figured it out. "Oh no..."

"Oh yes," Rapunzel sadly said. Even though she was upset that Eugene was being mean to Kristoff, she needed to know something else. "Does this mean that you think I have an unholy love for Pascal?"

"No no no! That's different. You talk TO the chameleon. He was speaking FOR his overgrown goat. That's weird!"

It was not the answer she wanted to hear as she was now staring angrily at him.

"I guess this means no happy time, tonight?" Eugene joked.

The angry stare was still there.

But he knew an answer that would work, "Fine. I'll apologize to Anna and goat man… I mean Kristoff as soon as possible."

"That's good to hear," Rapunzel smiled. "But at least this night wasn't a total loss."

"How was it not a total loss?"

"Because you had something to talk about with Kristoff."

Eugene just looked utterly confused as he laid his head onto Rapunzel's lap and simply said "Please just…. hit me with the frying pan again. Don't hold back this time."


	7. Tales of Facial Definition

_**After forming a partnership between Arendelle and DunBroch and bonding with Hiccup over their experiences of having a friendless childhood, a wild old recluse appears to Elsa to give her input on something else.**_

This story is mostly rips off... I mean base itself on the Tales of Xillia skit titled "Yoked out mana lobes"

* * *

**Tales of Facial Definition**  
"EEEK!" Elsa screamed. "I can't believe I'm riding on Toothless! God never meant for humans to go at such breakneck speed at a very high attitude!"

In reality, Toothless was walking along the ground very, VERY slowly. Partially because he sensed the Snow Queen's discomfort and partially because he didn't want Hiccup to berate him like he did when the dragon first met Astrid.

Hiccup was very calm despite the fact that a woman older than him was squeezing his arms in fear like a child to the point of pain. The fact that her hands were cold did not help matters.

"Don't worry, Elsa" Hiccup deadpanned. "It'll be over soon. Toothless stop trying to out walk that old lady with the cane. It's not race."

Both Hiccup and Jack had met up with Elsa back in Berk and they both decided to escort Elsa to DunBroch. Both boys knew the way to the kingdom in the highlands and Elsa could have always used the company. Jack was flying when he looked down and saw the reserved queen panicking as she left a trail of ice on the grass. He could not help but laugh and when he saw Elsa's bodyguard in tow, he decided to drop a snowball on him. Naturally, the guard assumed that it was Elsa's powers that did that.

But at least it got Elsa to lighten up. She giggled to the guard, "That wasn't me, I swear."

_This is…. Nice,_ she thought. _ Even when they got back to their homes, Hiccup and Jack both went out of their way to escort me. Even when I was scared out of my mind, my friends tried to make me smile._

"Well, here we are. Thank Thor," Hiccup said. "Castle DunBroch."

Castle DunBroch was a majestic castle with its own earthly and gritty look. It was bustling with people as they welcomed the queen of a foreign land.

"I'm gonna sit this one out," Hiccup explained. "The Scots don't really like vikings. And it's your meeting."

"I'm gonna find Merida's little brothers," Jack said. "They remind me a little of myself.

Elsa nodded in understanding and she headed towards the castle to be greeted by Merida and her parents. The King of DunBroch was a burly, redhead not unlike Chief Stoick. The Queen was a beautiful middle aged woman draped in green.

"Welcome to DunBroch, Queen Elsa." the king said. "I'm Fergus, king of these lands."

"It is a pleasure to meet the young queen. I'm Queen Elinor."

Elsa bowed in respect.

"Hey, Elsa," Merida, wearing a tight, green dress with a tight corset underneath, casually said while not standing up straight compared to her parents' regal posture.

"Merida, straighten up. And show some respect," Elinor said. Even though she knew that Merida and Elsa were friends, manners were still manners.

So Merida gave a curtsy and then said, "Yo whatup, Els."

Elinor groaned while Elsa let out a tiny snicker.

"Well," Elsa began. "Shall we go ahead with this meeting?"

The trade meeting was rather uneventful as it consisted of two people, the queens, who were roughly equal in intellect and political savvy, debating the terms. Merida had almost fell asleep twice while her father almost fallen asleep seven times. Eventually after a few hours, they were able to get an agreement where everyone was happy.

"Well, Queen Elsa, those were intense negotiations," Elinor complimented.

"Indeed."

"Merida, you can learn a few things from this young woman."

Merida rolled her eyes. Sensing her sadness, Elsa said, "Oh, I'm sure Merida will be even a greater queen than I."

Merida smiled, which caused Elsa to smile back.

_To think, that I can make someone else feel better. It's incredible._

"Well, your Majesties," Elsa bowed. "I do have to be going. My dear sister must miss me so much by now."

"Farewell, Queen Elsa," Fergus said. "May fortune bless your kingdom."

Elsa left the great hall leaving on the royal family of DunBroch there.

"She reminds me of myself when I was her age," Elinor bragged.

"Sure, mom," Merida responded, not really believing her.

"But I say, must she wear that gown? It's so…. revealing. She seems to be rather free with herself…"

"MOM!" Merida yelled. Then she lowered her tone, "We went over this. She's just expressing herself like any other young person."

"Besides," Fergus defended and winked. "Maybe we can ask her if there is a dress like in your size, my dear."

"Not in front of Merida!"

"Yeah, dad. I don't want to see THAT image of Mom," Merida whined as she got up to see her friends off. As soon as she got of the monkey dress anyway.

Back outside, Elsa was smiling ear to ear as she had completed her mission. Now Arendelle did not have to suffer economically after cutting ties with Weasaltown, and for the first time, Elsa did not feel like a failure as a ruler. She saw Hiccup and Toothless lying on top of the hillside and she went up to greet them.

"Hiccup! DunBroch is the newest trading partner of Arendelle," she said in relief. "We're going to be okay. When I get home, I am going to stay in bed for a month."

Hiccup smiled, "I'm happy for you, Elsa."

"My gratitude that you are happy. And thank you, Toothless, and Jack for accompanying me on to DunBroch."

"What are friends for?"

There's that word, "friends", again. It really began to hit her how lucky she was to have met such a wonderful group of people.

"Friends…" she repeated. "I still can't believe it that I actually have friends. It still feels so surreal to not be alone."

"I know the feeling," Hiccup agreed as he petted Toothless. "But it's a feeling that I never want to lose."

"And who knew that riding a dragon would be…"

"Amazing?"

"Terrifying."

"It gets easier," Hiccup comforted. But he noticed a couple of people missing and one strange person here, "Where's Jack? He's supposed to be leaving with us. And I would have thought Merida would have come to give a farewell… and who's that?"

Hiccup pointed behind Elsa and she turned around to see a short, elderly lady wearing green with a crow on her head. The elder smiled at Elsa.

"Hello dearie," the old crone greeted.

"Ummm… hello."

"The dress she wears would look nice on the missus!" the crow cawed.

Elsa and Hiccup were dumbfounded as they just heard a talking crow. But what the lady said next would shock Elsa even more.

"You have magic in you, don't you?"

Elsa's usual feeling of anxiety began to creep up inside of her as she fidgeted with hands and looked for a way out.

_Great. This is how I'll probably die. Pecked to death by that talking crow while the old lady laughs and laughs_.

However when the elder said, "Do show a frail, old lady your magic." Elsa was surprised.

"I'm sorry?" she said wanting clarity.

"Don't worry, I'm a fellow witch too. I won't burn you at the stake," the old lady explained.

Hiccup was not really buying this, "That phrase is what someone would usually say before they actually burn someone at the stake."

Elsa was a bit a skeptical as she thought she was the only one who was magical. But since she met dragon trainers, another guy who has ice magic, and a young girl who sees Will o Wisps, Elsa figured that it really could not hurt to show this woman. So Elsa decided a cast a few flurries and make small items with her snow. She made a patch of snow, a glob of ice, and a snowwoman because she wanted to mix it up after building so many snowmen.

"Just as I thought," the alleged witch said. "Your magic is very developed."

"It is?" asked Elsa.

"How can you tell just by looking?" Hiccup wondered.

The witch explained, "When this young dearie casts her magic, her face becomes stern and determined."

"I have trouble believing that," Hiccup denounced as he was always a rationalist.

Elsa decided to finally have her fun in teasing. "Hiccup, does this mean that you think my face is goofy looking and easily swayed?"

"N-no," stammered Hiccup. "That's not what I meant."

But when he saw Elsa laugh, he relaxed a bit as well though it wasn't as funny for him.

_No wonder Anna teases so much. It is rather fun_ Elsa thought.

Just then overhearing the conversation, Jack Frost decided to land in. He was finishing up playing with Merida's little brothers and they'd had a good time pranking their well-endowed nanny with ice. Of course, it had gotten awkward for the four of them when they walked in on said nanny and some muscular guy doing something that is not going to be described. As soon as he told the brothers to ask their parents about…. treasure hunting in caves, he made a break for it and found his friends. And since, they were talking to an old lady about ice magic, he wanted in.

"Hold on, Hiccup," Jack interjected. "This so called witch could be onto something. I sometimes feel my face become stern lookin when I use ice magic. I wonder if the same part of the brain that controls the face can also control the magic."

Hiccup raised his hands in disbelief, "Jack, you aren't actually buying into this insanity, are you?"

"Jack?" the witch asked. "Who's Jack? Who are you talking to, you ugly child?"

Hiccup just simply sighed.

Elsa wanted to know how to control her powers better. so she decided that she should believe the witch.

_Who knows, it could be nice to actually have someone teach me how to use magic._

"Then maybe," Elsa began. "Could the relationship go both ways? Maybe if we… I mean I…"

Elsa had to remember that the old woman couldn't see Jack. Of course, since this witch was supposedly magical, Elsa wondered why she couldn't see him.

"err, **I** strengthen our… I mean 'my' facial muscles our magic…. Ugh"

Jack could see that Elsa was struggling for his sake and to keep herself from looking psychotic, he reasoned "Elsa, don't worry about this old hag not being able to see me. From the looks of her, she lost the right to judge someone else as insane."

"Strengthen the facial muscles… maybe magic will get stronger," she said in a tone equivalent to ripping a band aid right off.

_I sounded like Anna rambling just now_

"Well, it can't hurt to try," Jack dared. "Let's do this. 1! 2! 3!"

At that moment both Elsa and Jack froze (not literally) their faces in a stern look. Since they weren't in any real danger and both characters are just naturally adorable looking, they looked a bit ridiculous with their serious looks. But hey, looking silly is a bit of a price to pay to control the ice and make it stronger.

Just then, Merida arrived. After she dressed into her casual clothes and after she'd wondered why her kid brothers were talking about treasure hunting in caves, she'd arrived at the hillside to see her friends off and wish them a safe journey.

"Oh good, you guys haven't left yet and…." Merida said before she stopped and saw the elderly lady. "You?! Why are you here?"

"Oh you're the girl who wanted to turn her mother into a bear," the witch said. "How did it go?"

"Did your mother BEAR the fruit of your actions?" the crow joked.

"Shoo shoo! Go away, old hag!" Merida yelled at the witch while making hand gestures as if she's shooing away a rodent. "Do not try to butter my three friends up. I won't let you scam them into becoming bears."

"Three?" the witch said in confusion. "I only see one young woman who can use magic and the ugly boy who is going mad. Are you going mad like the ugly boy?"

Hiccup sighed. "It's not like that bothers me or anything."

"Shut it, witch," Merida ordered. "Go back to your house in the middle of nowhere."

Hiccup could tell that Merida and this old woman did not have a good history together. He then figured that this must have been the witch Merida talked about who can control brooms and knives with her mind.

"Very well, I'm sorry," the witch apologized. "And to think the ice sorceress could have become even stronger with her magic. And she would have had the honor of being the first person to turn into a majestic polar bear."

The witch left as her last sentence left the ice users stunned into silence. Not to mention that they were in such disbelief, their faces STILL remained stern looking. Merida noticed their unmoving expressions.

"Hiccup, what's wrong with these two? Why are their faces like that? They look so… strict"

Hiccup raised his hands in the air again, "I think we've just witness the first scam victims being conned into making strikingly well=defined faces."

_Indeed,_ Elsa thought.

* * *

_**The next story will be the conclusion of the Arendelle sisters' arc. And it will be less funny and more full of feels.**_


	8. Tales of Closure

**_Here it is. The feelsy conclusion to the Arendelle sisters' arc: Elsa visits her parents' grave and recalls the recent events of her life._**

**_Of course, I admit that Anna herself didn't play much of a part in this skit, but for the most part, Anna's head is on straight social wise. Meanwhile, 13 years of self loathing and isolation isn't going to healed in a few weeks/months whatever._**

**_Also why bring up Elsa's self loathing issues despite these skits mostly being comedies? ehh it's still a part of her character and it make for a good closure for an arc. lol_**

**_Anyway, I hope this skit brings on the feels_.**

* * *

**Tales of Closure**  
After a week of deals, unwanted attention and madness, Elsa finally made it back home. And after a week of questioning friends, horrible night outs, and madness, Anna greeted her sister back home. They both hugged each other which lasted for a minute. Afterwards, they began the sisterly bonding of talking about what happened to them.

Anna told her sister about her conversations about booger eating, which Elsa thought was a weird question to ask, and about her disastrous double date with Rapunzel and Eugene. Fortunately for Anna's sake, Elsa was not completely mad at her though she still got a lecture about using weapons. Also their aunt and uncle were not going to hold Anna's assault on Eugene against them as they knew he could be a handful despite being almost 27.

_Then again, they're in-laws. They might have found it funny that someone knocked out Eugene._ Anna thought.

Elsa told her Anna about all the trade deals she managed to get, which Anna had forced herself to stay awake to listen to, the time one of Hiccup's friends hit on her, and how an old witch with a talking crow almost turned Elsa into a bear. Anna wanted to punch the Viking, the witch, and the crow, but since she would feel guilty about hitting an old lady, she settled for hitting the Viking and the crow one and half times as hard.

_Oh Anna, you don't have to punch the crow either. Just punch Snotlout three times as hard_. Elsa thought.

Eventually, nighttime came and the sisters hugged each other good night while telling the other she loved her. Elsa tried to fall asleep, but found that she couldn't fall asleep for a minute, let alone even a month like she'd told Hiccup. And it was not because of the fact that she was worried that she would have nightmares of killing Anna. Instead the reason she couldn't fall asleep was that she was finally…. excited. Happy even. The only time she was had ever been this excited was when she thawed her kingdom and managed to hug Anna after years of avoiding her.

So Elsa kept herself occupied by going over the memories of her new friends and it was then that she realized something. She figured that there were two more people left who she should tell about her progress as a person: the two people she put off talking to for so damn long.

After thinking about what to say to them, she finally drifted to sleep.

The next day, Elsa decided to cancel any meetings for the rest of the day. She told Anna what she was going to do and when Anna offered to accompany her, Elsa declined, telling her that this was something she had to do on her own. Of course, Elsa was anxious about doing this as she kept putting it off until it became midafternoon using excuses like "just one more hour" or "psyche self up better" or "door has invisible barrier keeping me from going through." But she managed to give herself enough courage to finally go outside and start walking to the destination.

Elsa walked through the town square where her citizens bowed to her in respect and she smiled and waved in return. They weren't her focus for once however as she headed out of the town and into a clearing. This clearing did not have anything special except for two stone objects and Elsa knew that these specific two stones will never have the occupants they were created for. Elsa stopped and stood in front of them.

_I can do this. It's been a long time, but I'm finally visiting my parents' graves._

Elsa straightened up and took a deep breath.

"Hello Mama. Hello Papa," Elsa greeted even though their bodies were not there, nor would they have answered if they were.

"Sorry that I'm three years late to visit," Elsa joked as she laughed nervously. But considering how few people talk to their parents from the great beyond, Elsa was doing rather well. So she decided to follow it up by talking about what she inherited.

"I'm trying my best as queen. I've been following all the lessons you taught me…" Elsa said before she realized the second sentence was a lie.

"Well not all of the lessons. The 'conceal don't feel' one. That one led to rather unpleasant side effects. And if you are able to look down from the afterlife, you two had seen it."

Elsa sighed as she recalled her greatest shame of almost committing accidental genocide. So she changed the subject to something more positive.

"I've made a lot of new trade agreements with a lot of new kingdoms after the fallout with Wesaltown," Elsa brightened. "It's the least that I could do to continue your legacy…. and to make up for almost killing everyone."

There was the self-loathing again. And to think, she was getting better at feeling more confident about herself but old habits die hard. So she decided to talk about the one person who Elsa would never have a negative thought about…

Hans!

Just kidding, it's Anna.

"Anna has been there for me the entire time. Who would have thought that the answer was love?" Elsa said. "Now the citizens know about my powers but they're not afraid of them. And I'm not afraid of them either. They don't control me anymore. And it's all thanks to Anna. We're close and again, more than ever before."

Elsa beamed as it really dawned on her that she had completed the objective that took 13 years to do. And it felt like a Jovian-sized planet had been lifted off the Snow Queen's shoulders. Even though Elsa felt like dancing right there she refrained from doing so 'cause dancing near your parents' graves…. Yeah.

Finally, not being able to put it off any longer she said, "And the strangest thing is…. I have friends. Six more friends. I know I can't believe it either. It feels so strange to have friends."

Even before she isolated herself, Anna was really Elsa's only friend. Of course, Elsa loved her so much, that she didn't mind that her baby sister was her only buddy.

Elsa continued, "In a way, they're all like Anna."

Elsa thought about what she said as she imagined her parents thinking that their daughter found six duplicates of her hyperactive sister. Elsa giggled at the thought.

"Well, they're not afraid of me because of my powers, title, or my personality. They're all an eternal joy to be around. And most importantly, they like me for…. me."

Elsa always felt that most people who are not Anna who wanted to associate with her were nothing more than ass kissers who were just using her power to get betterment for themselves. But her new friends never did. They were kind and helpful and they wanted nothing in return except for Elsa's friendship.

"I suppose I should tell you about them," Elsa suggested. "Let's see... oh there's your niece, Rapunzel and your nephew in law, Eugene. They are very much in love.

"Eugene loves to tell tall tales while Rapunzel try to keep him grounded," Elsa giggled when she recalled dinner story Anna told her about. "But sometimes, it's the other way around as well.

"There is also this Viking duo who domesticates dragons. Their names are Hiccup and Astrid…" Elsa stated. After a pause as if expecting a response she finished, "I agree those are strange names. Oh, I also rode Hiccup's dragon once. It was scary."

Now Elsa felt as if she was five years ago again and excitedly telling her parents about the day she lost her first tooth.

"Hiccup and I are a lot alike. We both like to read and look for peaceful ways to end conflict. And we're both also introverted."

Elsa wondered if there was something wrong with her since she never warmed up to people as fast as Anna did. But now knowing Hiccup, she realized that you can be quiet and still be friendly.

"And Astrid gave me some rather aggressive advice on driving away unwanted attention from unwanted suitors. Honestly, I never thought I would need advice like that as I never really thought myself as attractive."

Even though there are tons of guys and some women who would have told her "you're drop dead gorgeous" her loneliness did not let her believe that.

Suddenly Elsa felt sullen as a cloud appeared over her head and started snowing. "I always thought myself a monster. An ugly monster that deserved to suffer alone forever because of my… curse."

Elsa sniffled and then let out a quiet sob but she recomposed herself. "But again, Anna showed me that I'm not a monster to be feared. Whether or not I have powers."

"Speaking of ice. I met this… spirit. If you can call them that as I do not know what he really is. He might be a zombie. Anyway, his name is Jack Frost."

Elsa sighed. "If only we met earlier in life. He could have helped with my powers."

She imagined what it would have been like if Jack appeared during her first day of isolation. He would tell her, she would have mastered it in three days and then she and Anna could have been sisters again. And it would have been as if nothing bad had ever happened.

Elsa snapped from her thoughts. "Oh well. No use thinking about the past. Anyway, Jack is playful, cheeky, and he likes to pop out of nowhere and join in on a conversation.

"There is also Merida. She's an adventurous tomboy. And she has a rather… strong dislike of Vikings."

Elsa decided to hold off on how strong Merida's dislike was.

"But she still hangs with Hiccup and Astrid… Yeah I can't believe it either. But she is full of life and spunk, and she still is a caring girl at the end of the day."

Almost wrapping her conversation, Elsa finished up, "And of course, there's Anna. There will always be Anna. She will forever be my best friend."

Elsa began to tear up again. But they weren't tears of sadness as no snow was falling. They were tears of joy. "In fact, thanks to her, I met my new friends. I am SO blessed to have her for a sister. I will protect her, Mama and Papa."

Elsa cried in joy as she made a bunch of icy roses and she placed the flowers in front of the graves.

Calming down, she finished. "Well I've said all I wanted to say. I am no longer the scared little girl hiding in her room. I actually feel…. good and happy about myself. Goodbye Mama and Papa, I'll visit you again real soon. I love you."

Thus, Elsa finished her closure. In the distance, her younger sister watched her. She had come in around the time when Elsa said her friends remind her of Anna.

"Way to go, sis," Anna quietly said as she wiped away a tear of her own.

Of course, Elsa told the princess she was going to do this alone, but Anna knew that Elsa was never alone anymore emotionally. So physically, Elsa should have minded either.

Elsa didn't though as she saw Anna and walked towards her and held her hands with her own. Neither said anything for a while but just looked at each other and smiled.

Anna was the first to break the silence, "The gang is coming over to play cards and then we were gonna go out and eat. You wanna come?"

Elsa smiled, "As if you need to ask. I would very much love to join you guys. But can I suggest the location?"

Anna raised an eyebrow and then the realization hit her. "You mean…."

"Yes."

* * *

An hour later, our eight friends head up into the mountains that were beyond Arendelle with food and cards in tow. Elsa led them to her pride and joy; her very majestic ice palace which Elsa had fixed some time ago. Her companions stared in awe at the building and Anna could have sworn that she heard Jack quietly cry.

So for the rest of the day, all into the night, and well into the early morning, the eight amigos stayed in the palace and ate, played cards, swapped stories, and gave a toast to Elsa because of her ice castle and her friendship. Even the two dragons managed to entertain themselves with a giant living snowman. Laughter filled the halls and happiness radiated from the walls. It was as the castle itself was happy for the first time in months.

Many words could be used to describe Elsa the Snow Queen. But there was one word that could never be used to describe her again:

Alone.

* * *

_**The next arc will focus on Merida finding her place in the world.**_


	9. Tales of The Want Ads

_**Queen Elinor wants her oldest daughter to stop slacking and to start looking for a job.**_

_**Here it is, the start of Merida's arc. Unlike the Arendelle sisters, her arc is actually streamlined. Naturally since these skits are about friends, she will ask them to hook her up with a job. And naturally, the pressure of finding something she's going to have to do for the rest of her life will get to her. And since these skits are still comedies, her job search will start off normal and then go right into the weird with many laughs along the way. Wait to you see what I have Flynn Rider do as a career choice. lol**_

_**But other than him, everyone else will have a career they already had in their respective canons or something close to their personalities (EX: Hiccup is still a dragon trainer, Anna being the 'face' of Arendelle, etc.)**_

* * *

**Tales of the Want Ads**  
Somewhere in Castle DunBroch, three naughty princes running around their home like they giggled like the little miscreants they were. Elsewhere in the castle, their older sister with long, curly, red hair looked for them in frustration as her dress was practically covered in dirt. She grunted in anger: it was her duty as an older sister to look after her younger brothers, but they were not making it easy for her.

_That's the last time I allow them to have my sweets for a year_, Princess Merida thought.

It was just her rotten luck too. Her parents had decided to have a meeting about border patrol and Queen Elinor, bossy as she was, demanded that Merida babysit her triplet brothers for a few hours. The nanny was sick in bed because she'd had caught a cold following Queen Elsa's visit. Merida figured that it could not have been Elsa since it looked like she never even understood the concept of shivering. Jack said there was some guy in the nanny's room and they were 'treasure hunting in a cave,' so it was probably him who gave her the cold.

Either way, Merida suffered the consequences of someone else's actions.

"Damnit," Merida said to no one. "This isn't how I was supposed to spend my day. And Rapunzel and Jack are coming over any minute. "

Still looking for Rosemary's babies, the tomboyish princess failed to notice a trip wire in front of her. She stumbled, yelped, and fell face first onto the floor.

Merida sighed. "At least it can't get any worse."

No sooner than she said that, a bag of flour fell on top of her. Now she was covered in the baking material.

"Okay… ack!" Merida coughed out flour. "NOW it can't get any worse."

And as if fate conspired against her, the third of part of the trap, chicken feathers, slowly drifted toward Merida.

Outside the castle, the princess of sunshine and the spirit of winter were heading towards their destination as they had the fun day planned. First, they were going to play another round of William Tell, with Jack having the apple on his head as he always lived for the thrill… if he could manage to stay corporeal that is. And then they were going to commit pranks on the reclusive witch in revenge for being very annoying. Jack was excited while Rapunzel was rather concerned about the activity.

"Are you sure we should be doing either of those things?" the princess of Corona asked. "I mean what if you get hurt? It's not like we know for sure what passes through you and why?"

To be honest, Jack REALLY wanted to know what objects can phase through him and why he didn't simply fall right through the Earth. "Don't worry, Rapunzel," Jack assured. "Besides, if all else fails, blame the leprechaun of St. Patty's Day."

Rapunzel had no clue what he was talking about since she still couldn't even believe that Jack was friends with the Easter Bunny. As she stopped thinking about that she noticed that Merida had not come out to greet them.

"Where is she? It's not like her to be that busy."

"Yeah," Jack agreed. "She lives the life of adventure, exploration, and using firearms. Besides, we'll join her anyway if she's off on an expedition. We could find a third thing to do after the others."

Rapunzel was confused about Jack's firearm comment. "The bow isn't a firearm. Who told you it was?"

Jack gave a stunned look and then raised his hand in the air and yelled "Damnit, Anna!"

As the pair headed for the castle in excitement for the adventure they were going to have, Rapunzel yelled. "Merida? Come out and play. Let down your hair!"

Jack gave her an odd look.

"What? I always wanted to say that myself?" the long haired princess giggled.

The doors opened and Merida walked out of the castle. She looked like a disaster since, in addition to the flour and feathers; she was covered in horse feed, sausage grease, and sheep wool.

_And mom just expects me to have kids?_ Merida thought to herself.

"Oh my gosh!" Rapunzel exclaimed. "What's going on with you?"

"Sorry, guys," Merida frowned. "I can't play with you today. I'm stuck babysitting my rotten brothers. And they're more fidgety than Eugene trying to find a mirror."

Jack tensed up, "THAT bad, huh?" Jack knew that Eugene's level of vanity rivaled that of Narcissus.

Rapunzel just sighed in annoyance due to her friends having fun at the expense of her husband's dignity. But she came up with an idea.

"How about Jack covers a field with snow and then we can have a snowball fight? That will tire your brothers out, Merida."

Jack nodded in agreement. "Good idea. The last hoorah before Mother's Day."

"Jack, Mother's Day was last week," Merida explained. "Who told you that Mother's Day hasn't passed yet?"

Jack raised his hand in the air again and yelled "Damnit, Astrid!"

Trying to keep on the topic aof babysitting, Merida said. "Well let's try it anyway. It can't be any worse than the games my brothers are playing now. Besides, what's the worst that could happen?"

**_90 minutes later_**

"I am very disappointed in you, young lady."

That stern and upsetting tone came from Queen Elinor. Merida simply lowered her head in shame. How could she foreseen the madness that wouldcome from her brothers?

"But mom, I swear it wasn't my fault!" Merida defended. "How was I supposed to know that the boys were throwing weapons like a bunch of loons?"

Actually, the weapons were the least of the queen's concern. The boys letting the farm stock run loose, clogging up the drinking wells with grass, and almost setting their father on fire didn't help the princess' case.

"So," Elinor began, "Whose fault was this?"

She REALLY wanted to hear the true perpetrator of this madness. If she was lucky, she could look back on this excuse and laugh.

"It was... uhhhh. Jack Frost's fault," Merida muttered as she tried to hide by covering her face with her curly hair.

"Oh Jack Frost you say?" Elinor gritted. "Really Merida, you're almost 17 years old. When are you going to get rid of this imaginary friend of yours? Let alone stop blaming him because of your negligence."

It was at this point that "imaginary" Frost started pelvic thrusting behind Merida. The princess of DunBroch could not help but snicker at the image but she suddenly stopped when her mother looked at her as if she was going to yell so loud, you could hear it on Mars.

But Elinor kept her cool as she knew that trying to out stubborn her daughter would be a fruitless task.

"So you think this is funny? Well you must learn how to take responsibility."

"But I did. Remember that time you turned into a bear and…"

"We agreed to never talk about that again!" Elinor comically snapped before she regained her composure, "Now as I was saying, you have too much free time to laze around the castle. You're getting a job."

Merida was dumbfounded. "But mom…"

"No buts, young missy," Elinor interrupted. "It's time for you to start pulling your own weight. You're an intelligent, talented, young woman. It shouldn't be too hard to find something to do or even start a job all on your own. And look at it this way; you can use the money you earn on anything you want. Maybe a nice, new bow."

Merida knew that deep down, her mother was not asking her to do something devastating like marrying either a shy idiot, a tantrum throwing idiot, or an idiot, but hey teenagers.

"Well fine. Maybe I can become a 'face' character at carnival or something," Merida said sassily.

"Not with that attitude you won't," her mother snarked right back. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'll have soldiers escort your friend, Rapunzel back to her ship and give your brothers a strict talking to."

As Elinor left, Merida was left to her own thoughts. Thinking about the situation, she felt a bit worried. But not because it would cut into her free time but because all of her friends seemed to have found their callings already and she had started to be concerned if she was going to bloom lately.

_Well, maybe I can ask them to show me what to do. _Merida thought. _That way, I could find something and Mom would stop acting like a shrilling monkey on my back._

_Besides, it can't be that hard whatever they're doing._

_But what if it is, then what? And if not that, what if I completely loathe what my friends do?_

"So sorry about that, Merida."

Merida snapped out of her thoughts as she saw Jack sitting next to her. Speaking of which, she is ticked off at the spirit.

"Thanks for messing everything up, Jack. Why did you throw the happy, fun snow thing in my brothers' face BEFORE you made a snow covered field? They started throwing weapons at Maudie."

"Well I wanted to try it out on children," Jack explained as he recalled that the Easter Bunny hadn't gone mad when I'd done it to him. "It's not like I thought… THAT would happen."

"Now I have to get a job. What could I possibly find?"

"I can put in a good word for you with the Guardians."

Merida just looked at Jack and gave him an 'are you kidding me' face.

"Well if you don't want my help, go find the wanted ads," Jack said and then he clapped. "Come on chop chop."

Merida just sighed, covered her face in her lap, and muttered, "This is going to be a nightmare."

* * *

**_Now for some replies from reviewers:_**

**_davidholguin2- No. As I said, there's no shipping outside canon relationships (which means Rapunzel/Eugene, Hiccup/Astrid, & Anna/Kristoff are okay. And the latter is iffy since Kristoff isn't going to be in this story much) Also, I'm not a fan of Jelsa or any other fan pairings among the Big Four + Frozen. Besides, the Frozen/RotG is like 99% Jelsa anyway. There's no shortage_**

**_YouNameIt- I have something planned for the Season Princesses to do together. Hint, the thing they will do together will be cartoony and most likely illegal lol. But sadly, that's for the next character arc._**


	10. Tales of Cooking

_**Rapunzel decides to give Merida cooking lessons. After all, how hard can it be? It's just food... and using fire to heat up said food...**_

_**Also, if you think that Rapunzel NEVER picked up on Mother Gothel's rude passive-aggressive behavior, you cray cray. lol**_

_**It'll be explained later though.**_

_**This story is derived from 3 Tales skits. The first part is based on the Tales of Vesperia skit titled "Call it what it is." The second one is based on Tales of the Abyss skit titled "The Princess' Cooking Struggles, Part 3." And the third part is based on the Tales of Vesperia skit titled "It."**_

* * *

**Tales of Cooking  
**It had taken her mother some convincing, but Merida managed to get the queen's blessing to allow her friends to help her find a career choice. Elinor knew Merida's friends were trustworthy people, including those two damned Vikings, Merida associated with, who were an honest duo. The princess had her idea set up: She would ask her friends to show her the ropes of what they do and she would decide what would be best for her.

Rapunzel decided to be the first one to help the curly haired princess. After all, she felt that this entire mess was partially her fault. But it wasn't like she could have expected the little boys to throw axes at people. Merida was truly grateful that her friend decided to help her, but a few days after the trip to Elsa's ice palace, Rapunzel had becomekind of…. happily snippy.

"Uhh yeah," Merida stammered. "I appreciate your offer, but you don't have to if you don't want to."

"Oh I know I don't have to," Rapunzel weirdly smiled. "I'm just nice like that."

That last comment made Merida tense up a bit and she did not know why.

Rapunzel found her calling by hosting parties and dinners as it was a good fit for a happy go lucky, young woman like herself. She could plan, organize, bake, and set up the decorations all before lunch. Then again, having been locked up in a tower your entire life could have a major effect on your planning abilities. Merida figured that the blonde must be really stressed right now as Rapunzel was also tasked with setting up the biggest shindig in all of Western Europe. But that's for another story.

_I've heard from Mom that Corona was hosting the event_, Merida recalled. _I wonder how Rapunzel is handling this._

Rapunzel decided to start Merida off with basic cooking because cooking is a necessity for any kind of party…. or survival. Merida also figured that cooking would not be hard to master as she usually cooked whatever she found during her hunting sessions with her old man.

"Okay," Merida said. "What are we gonna cook first?"

"We're gonna cook vichyssoise," Rapunzel explained. "Here's a list of ingredients."

Rapunzel gave Merida the list and Merida found all the items for it. However Merida noticed that the ingredients for the vichyssoise were ingredients for potato soup.

"Wait," Merida halted. "I thought we were making vishy-whatever. Not potato soup."

"Vichyssoise is potato soup," Rapunzel answered.

"Then why not call it potato soup."

"Because it's called vichyssoise."

The two girls looked at each other dumbfounded as if the other one was being a plum idiot.

"Rapunzel, what do you call soup where the main thing is carrots?" Merida asked.

"Carrot soup, but…"

"Then this is potato soup!"

"Just call it vichyssoise, please?" Rapunzel said with a smile that was hiding tested patience.

Eugene then walked into the kitchen looking for booze, whiskey, or anything just to tolerate some cursed mime. If he was going to watch one more of that clown's 'I'm trapped in a box" joke, he's going to watch it while drunk.

"Hi, my love," Eugene lovely said as he kissed Rapunzel. Then he said to Merida, "Hey Red."

"Eugene," Merida called wanting a third opinion. "What would you call this with the ingredients we're using?"

The reformed thief looked at the ingredients and then an expression horrible shock crossed his face "Aw damnit, don't tell me we're having potato soup for dinner again? I hate potato soup."

Rapunzel raised her hands in frustration while Merida flashed a cheesy smirk.

After shooing out her husband, Rapunzel began to make Merida get to work on making 'vishy swa.' Before they began, the princesses had to put on a hairnet as both of them had hair way too long for their own good. Even though the rulers of Corona were happy to have their daughter, they were not so happy when they kept finding her blonde hair in their food whenever she made a meal.

Both girls thought that Merida would at least know complex cooking instructions like how to boil water, but Rapunzel learned that as far as the kitchen goes, Merida was like a lost little lamb.

"It's not that hard, dear," Rapunzel said, exasperated. "Just simply light the wood under the pot."

"Okay," Merida impatiently said while putting down an eggbeater she was holding as if it were a foreign weapon. "It's just starting a fire. It can't be THAT dangerous."

Merida took a match and lit it as she approached the pot. She reached out towards the chopped wood with the enflamed match in her hand towards the chopped wood.

* * *

**_20 seconds later…_**

**_KABOOLIE!_**

"THE ENTIRE COUNTRY IS ON FIRE!" a guard yelled in utter despair.

Houses burned, land burned, people burned as the few unharmed people look at where the beautiful castle use to be. Now in its place, lay a molten crater where a fiery tornado formed and began to shoot out soot and sulfur which would cause suffocation and soon turn the kingdom into the next Pompeii.

"WHERE'S THE ROYAL FAMILY?!" a citizen hollered.

"DISINGRATED!"

_"Rapunzel…"_

"BY THE PRINCESS OF DUNBROCH, NO LESS!" another guard yelled.

_"Rapunzel?"_

"DEATH TO THAT SCOTISH KINGDOM! LET THOSE SAVAGES BURN IN HELL FOR WHAT THEY DONE!"

_"RAPUNZEL!"_

Rapunzel snapped out of her daymare to find that nothing had been razed… yet.

"Well, now what?" Merida wondered.

"Oh umm… well… uh"

After a few seconds, Rapunzel regained her nerves and began teaching by giving explanations.

"Okay, Merida, first shave the potatoes to remove their peels," she ordered. "When that's done, cut the onions equally into slices."

"And just how am I supposed to peel a potato?" Merida asked holding a peeler as if it was going to come to life any minute. "Am I to use my father's razor?"

Rapunzel quietly sighed but it didn't go unnoticed by the tomboy. "Was that a sigh of pity?"

"Merida there's nothing to get from that sigh," Rapunzel lied.

"Well help me with this so I can get my mom to stop nagging me."

"Then I suggest you pay attention and…"

Rapunzel stopped talking when she noticed that the pot was starting to catch on fire.

She screamed, "Merida the broth is starting to boil and the pot is becoming charred!"

"What?" Merida yelped! "Help me, what do I do?"

Rapunzel was too shocked to give an explanation as she was imagining her kingdom blowing up again. Only this time, fire monsters who liked cold hugs started hugging the population, burning them to death. So with no clue what to do, Merida took action herself. She removed Rapunzel's hairnet, whose owner was still lost in thought, and then used her long hair to wrap around the pot.

"Maybe if we use your hair, we can fix this!" Merida explained.

That snapped the Princess of Corona out of her dream. "WHAT?!"

But it was too late. Merida finished the wrapping, "There. Now sing that healing song, Rapunzel! Sing it!"

But as soon as a strand of Rapunzel's hair touched the fire, it spread to the hair wrapped around the pot. Merida can do nothing but look at her friend sheepishly and say…

"Ummm…. Your hair's on fire."

Rapunzel rightfully screamed as she grabbed a broom and tried to put the fire out. Of course, they were in a kitchen where plenty of water could be found, but who can think logically when they were on fire?

And Rapunzel wasn't the only one thinking illogically when the archer guiltily said, "So…. are the cooking lessons off then?"

"REALLY? YOU'RE ASKING THIS NOW?" Rapunzel yelled as she tried to fan out the flames eating away at her hair.

* * *

Eventually, the princesses' brains managed to work again and they used water to put the fire out. Alas, Rapunzel's hair was ruined. It lost its beautiful, golden color and Rapunzel turned back into a brunette much like the time she was reunited with her biologically family. Only this time, the ends of her hair were charred black and it was even a miracle that she wasn't bald.

Merida understood if Rapunzel was never going to speak to her, let alone even help her, again. But Rapunzel continued to help simply because she was 'nice like that.' Although every time Merida made a cooking mistake, Rapunzel's phrase was said through more gritted teeth every passing day.

A week later, even with Rapunzel saying that she needed more practice, Merida thought she was ready to try out her cooking on lab subjects…. err people. Rapunzel invited everyone over for a dinner party. Everyone was able to come except Elsa, Anna, and Jack. The former two could not come because of boring board meetings that Anna kept falling asleep in and the latter was unable to attend because he was currently exploring in America. Besides, Jack said that food literally passes right through him anyway. That left Eugene, Hiccup, and Astrid to attend Merida's first party where she made the food. Of course, Rapunzel was still miffed about the fire.

"Again," Merida began wanting assurance. "We're still friends right?"

"Yes we're still friends," Rapunzel smiled that weird smile. "And friends don't let something like setting your hair on fire come between them."

"Good cause cooking just isn't for me," Merida said as Rapunzel's eye twitched at the very late epiphany. "How on earth can I make cooking easier?"

"How about practice practice practice?" Astrid shrugged.

"Besides," Eugene started to point out. "You might actually enjoy cooking."

"Not really. It takes too long" answered the Scottish princess. "Food is supposed to give you energy right? Then just eat bread or an apple or something."

"Well this is a party so we expect more filling food," Hiccup explained. "Besides, you want us to eat raw ingredients?"

"You should have seen when Merida tried to make a sandwich," Rapunzel snickered. "Who makes a sandwich using an egg and only one slice of bread?"

_Damn, I really messed her up,_ Merida thought. "Rapunzel, I apologized 50 times already and I promise I'll pay for your next hair appointments."

Astrid was too busy dissecting Rapunzel's comment, "A raw egg? Ooookay."

Merida just groaned and went into the kitchen. When she came back, she was carrying a tray with five bowls on it. The bowls contained luscious looking chocolate pudding that was coated with peanuts. Her friends were impressed as the pudding actually looked good, let alone edible. Rapunzel wondered why Merida would skip to dessert, but put that thought behind her as she longed to taste the chocolate pudding.

"Seriously, you want to give up cooking?" Hiccup asked. "This looks incredible."

"I'll say," Astrid agreed.

"You really outdone yourself, Red," Eugene compliment.

Even Rapunzel smiled her first sincere smile in a long time and Merida blushed at the praises.

_Maybe cooking isn't so bad after all. I think I've found my niche._

"Well, bottoms up!" Eugene said as he ate a spoonful of pudding.

And then he passed out in four seconds and his face landed in the pudding. Rapunzel shrieked as Merida looked at Eugene's unconscious body in confusion. Astrid was too busy eating to notice the commotion because as soon as she ate a lump of her pudding, she broke out into hives.

"ACK!" Astrid said and she started to scratch herself furiously. "Why am I so damn itchy now?"

Astrid ran out of the dining room to look for Stormfly and use her spikes to relieve the bothersome scratching.

Hiccup looked at the passed out Eugene and then saw skin inflamed Astrid run out of the room. "Yep I guess this is Merida's cooking. I wonder what's my symptom are gonna be."

He waited. And waited. Then he noticed that nothing bad was happening to him at all. Maybe it wasn't the cooking. Maybe he was somehow blessed to have a decent immune system that protected him from his organs liquefying from the inside. Maybe his luck was starting to turn around….

Oh just kidding, Merida's pudding gave him diarrhea. "Excuse me. I have a meeting with a toilet"

Hiccup sprinted out the door which, possibly faster than Toothless' maximum flight speed. The two girls who hadn't even touch the pudding yet just looked around at the aftermath of the insanity, both stunned in silence as Eugene's body slid off the chair and face first onto the floor. Rapunzel was the first to break the silence.

"Merida, what the fudge happened? What was in that pudding?"

"Pudding? What pudding?" Merida asked with sincere uncertainty. "What I made was spaghetti."

"Spaghetti?" Rapunzel wondered. Then she picked up the bowl of pudding. "Then who made the pudding?"

"I did because that's not pudding. That's spaghetti."

Rapunzel's eye twitched again and it was so twitching so fast, her eye was becoming red. Then she finally let out a long sigh.

"There's that sigh again," Merida noticed.

"Maybe you should stick to something that won't risk the chance of bringing back the plague," Rapunzel suggested.

"Wait, does this mean that cooking lessons are off…"

"YES THE FUDGING COOKING LESSONS ARE FUDGING OFF!" Rapunzel bellowed.

Merida took this as a sign to leave… quickly.

_Well, at least I have six other people to ask to find a job or calling for. Well three, if something bad happens to the Vikings or Eugene._

Merida exited the room… and then came back in.

"Wait, you never taught me how to set up decorations or plan a seating arrangement or…"

Merida stopped talking and ran out the room to avoid Rapunzel throwing a bowlful of 'spaghetti' at her.


	11. Tales of A Queen's Apprentice

_**Since it's only inevitable that she'll become queen herself, Merida decides to go under Elsa's wing. Meanwhile, Anna continues to have fun playing little sister and bugging her older sister about her being boring.**_

* * *

**Tales of A Queen's Apprentice  
**Two days after the dinner fiasco Merida found herself riding on her horse, Angus, from Corona to Arendelle. Merida was at least thankful that her mother did not require escorts for her. Or perhaps Elinor knew that Merida had selected cooking as one of her prospects and decided against bringing guards along lest they get food poisoning also. Either way, Merida was going solo.

_Okay so maybe dinner makin' isn't for me. At least Anna and Elsa are not that far away._

Entering into Arendelle territory, Merida noticed that the kingdom was not exactly a large kingdom, but it seemed to be doing pretty well for itself.

"Not bad for a country that trades away a lot of fish, huh?" Merida asked to her horse. The horse spluttered either in agreement or apathy. Merida could not have guessed because she was busy focusing on getting to the castle.

Entering the town, Angus slowed to a walk to avoid running into anyone or anything. They passed a burly man riding a reindeer and both riders nodded their heads to each other in silent respects. Even their steeds showed admiration to each other. Eventually, Merida reached Castle Arendelle where Anna was waiting for her by being her jumpy, bubbly self.

_I hope whatever bug that's crawling in Anna right now isn't the same one that crawled in Rapunzel._ Merida thought while smirking.

Anna ran up to Merida and tried to make the less hyperactive princess jump up and down with her.

"Merida, you're here!"

"Yeah."

"Oh my gosh. You're gonna work for us. Well not for us... I mean yeah for us but it's not like we're gonna order you around like we do our butler. And it's gonna be so fun and Elsa can get boring work done much faster, and then we can all build snowmen for the rest of the day and…"

Merida simply smiled nervously as the princess of Arendelle kept talking nonstop…. for thirty minutes. Once Merida was able to say something, she talked about how Rapunzel's job was a disaster for her. Anna gave the archer emotional support but was secretly happy that she and Elsa actually missed out on the social event. Gatherings were all good and fun but keeping a hole from forming in your stomach had higher priority.

"Don't worry about us though," Anna assured. "I'm sure what Elsa has set up for you can't be any different than any duties your mother already wants you to do."

"My mother usually has me practice walks, curtsies, music and... eating with a fork," Merida said, shuddering at the last thing.

"Oh tell me about it. Eating with a fork? Ugh!"

Merida was happy that at least she finally had a friend who would rather roll in the mud with her than practice her curtsy.

Elsa was not ready to see them yet so Anna had to entertain Merida with whatever story she had on her mind.

"And that's how I was right about me knowing that my sister really DOES has a thing about dirt by using muddy boots, the ballroom, her braid, and a rubber ducky," Anna concluded with an exaggerated gesture. "So, how did you like it?"

"I think you need to stop listening to Eugene's stories," Merida answered. She couldn't believe what Anna did with that rubber ducky.

"Oh speaking of Eugene, I wanna tell you about the time I almost assassinated him using a frying pan, my boyfriend, and an assumption of beast…"

Anna's beginning of her new story was cut when the butler said that Elsa was ready to see both of them.

"Okay, cool. Thanks, Kai," Anna said. "Come on, Merida, let's go."

Merida followed Anna to Elsa's study.

Being the queen was not something that Elsa had chosen of her own free will but she did make the best of it with what she had. She thought outside the box with her brilliant, yet slightly warped, mind to come up with solutions to national and complex problems. But for all her intellect, Elsa was not a social butterfly, even if she did learn how to gain new friends. So that is where the younger sister came in.

Anna found her calling through her love of people and longing to help her sister. Since she was the more sociable of the two, Anna did her part by talking to the people and listening to whatever local problems or successes there were, which Anna would relay back to the queen. Arendelle was well off under their reign. With this strategy of Anna being the face of Arendelle and Elsa the brains, they were a well-oiled ruling machine, or as Elsa would dryly say, it was two knuckleheads working together at full capacity to do the job of one normal woman.

_Well, I'm going to do this queen crap eventually,_ Merida thought. _And I don't want to learn it from Mom. Might as well learn it from the best, try not to look stupid, and even get some money out of it._

Anna opened the door without knocking - because, screw it she's not doing that anymore - and went into Elsa's study. Elsa yelped in shock as a mound of snow fell upon Anna.

"Anna!" Elsa cried. "I told you I'm never locking the door on you again. Stop scaring me out of my skin and knock."

"Never!" Anna defied as soon as she stuck her head of the snow.

Anna tried to get up only to fall down and land on her bum. Elsa laughed and Merida walked over the klutz and towards Elsa.

"Yo whatup Els?" Merida asked.

"You're still talking like that to me even when your mother is not here."

"It's funny," Merida winked. "So what am I going to be doing?"

"Well, you are to be my lady in waiting," Elsa explained.

"But don't get the wrong idea, Meri," Anna scolded as she put her arm around her sister's waist for a side hug, "I still have the awesome title of Elsa's best friend."

_Why would me being a lady in waiting.… oh whatever._

"Sounds sweet," Merida spoke out loud. "What does a lady in waiting do?"

_And why didn't my mother have one?_

"Well, as lady in waiting you'll handle the secretarial stuff, assist me in duties, go over reports, supervise the servants, master etiquette…" Elsa explained.

Merida's face fell further at each of the duties she had to do.

_No wonder, my mother doesn't have one herself. They probably died from boredom._

Anna read the look on Merida's face, "Yeah the translation is that you're gonna do all the boring stuff while boring Elsa does even boringer… stuff."

"Anna!" Elsa loudly spoke.

Anna giggled, "Oh I'm just teasing you, sis. Even though I'm still right, when you do queenly stuff, you go deep into boring mode."

Elsa tried to reassure Merida, "Don't worry. It's not THAT boring. Besides, I'm not asking you to take care of my clothes. And we have head servants to make the load easier on supervision."

Merida wasn't completely convinced but she let the subject drop. But she wanted an answer from Anna, "If it's so boring Anna, then why are you here?"

"I'll do anything to help my big sister. Besides, the faster she finishes up boring royalty stuff, the faster we get to play together and do fun stuff."

"Despite the fact that your falling asleep during meetings make these boring meetings longer when we have to wake you up," Elsa smirked.

"Elsa!" Anna whined with indignation. "Gosh, I fall asleep just once…"

"Nine times actually," Elsa corrected.

"JUST ONCE," Anna said, too proud to admit, "and suddenly I'm the bad guy. Well I'd rather be the bad guy than be BORING!"

Merida noticed that the two ladies older than her are bickering like schoolchildren and it was actually quite amusing to see mature Elsa stooping down to the level of an immature child. And Anna… well this is probably just Tuesday for her.

"At least Elsa doesn't play pranks on you like pouring ants on your dress," Merida muttered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all. So is it always like this among you two, cause I can just simply go back to babysitting my little brothers."

"No, we usually have a bit more dignity," Elsa sighed.

"Actually, your babysitting skills can help us," Anna explained. "In babysitting you have to pacify children from throwing a tantrum when they don't get their way. It's the same in governing… only it's pacifying rich old farts when they don't get their way."

"Either way, a diaper usually has to be changed," Elsa finished.

Merida and Anna laughed. "Good one, Elsa," Anna complimented.

"I'm… not really joking."

The two princesses stared at the queen.

"Yeah I know. Some of them SHOULD retire from politics already."

"Uh huh," Merida shrugged wanting to get away from the idea of grown men not controlling their bowels. "And what about war?"

The sisters stared at her in utter confusion. "We would rather avoid war, you know?" Anna said.

"Awww and my dad that's the greatest part of being a monarch."

"Oh come on, Merida," Anna brightened. "It's not all bad."

Then Anna began to sing to the tune of a familiar song. "Do you want to write a tax coooooode? Or maybe declare martial laaaaaaaaaaaaaaw?"

"ANNA!" Elsa yelled.

Anna kept singing, "I think we should have a great snow force. And use brute force. To quell stupid Denmaaaaaaaark….. OOF!"

At the last statement, another mound of snow fell on Anna, "I was kidding, Elsa. Stop being dull!"

Merida couldn't help but laugh. Sure this maybe not the most exciting thing in the world, but at least she's going to have pleasant company to make the workload less annoying.

"What the hell, guys? Count me in. Let's do it."

Anna jumped up and cheered, "YAY! This is gonna be fun since you're going to help us! I'm so excited, I don't think I'm gonna fall asleep."

Elsa was elated as well though she kept her excitement behind her 'queenly face.' "This is going to be exhilarating. Shall we begin?"

Merida and Anna sat down as Elsa grabbed a paper from her files.

"Okay, here's a start. Article W8293, 'The Reconciliation of…"

And Anna fell asleep in eight seconds with her hair becoming messy like a bird's nest.

"Anna?" Merida asked poking the sleeping beauty's head. "Anna?"

Anna was still snoring away like a big baby.

Elsa sighed. "Well… at least she lasted six seconds longer than her average. Shall we continue, Merida?"

"O…okay," Merida stammered.

So the remaining two awake women started on going over these papers. While Elsa found herself at home with her work, Merida was struggling to make heads or tails of these documents. Her mother hasn't taught her these lessons yet and her father has a policy of 'No longer than one damn page.' It did not help that Merida was also struggling to stay awake as well.

"Honestly, I wish they would stop calling it Elsacare," the Snow Queen groaned. "Not only is it very juvenile, it's not even its proper name. Merida, dear, how are you doing?"

Merida dozed off a bit holding a bill in hand. However, when her head hit the desk, she woke up and spazzed out.

"Damn Viking bears!" the archer shouted, "WHA… I mean I'm fine! I'm fine."

Elsa just gave her an empathetic smile. "Yes I have to admit, making laws is not exactly the most exciting thing on Earth. I too would rather build snowmen than read over all of these bills."

Merida felt guilty on the inside. Here was one of her friends offering to help her with the dilemma and she had the nerve to fall asleep.

"Sorry Elsa. It's all my fault. I'm sure the remaining duties aren't as dull. Besides, I am getting paid for this. Might as well try to do a good job."

Elsa shifted awkwardly in her chair, "Ummm I'm sorry. You…. can't get paid."

"WHAT?!" Merida shouted. And that somehow didn't wake Anna.

"It's just that…. having a princess from a foreign land as my lady in waiting made the council very anxious. We can't have secrets getting spilled, you know? Even though I told them you were trustworthy, I had to make a compromise. This meant no payment."

Merida stared in silence as she could not believe Elsa's… underlings had the gall to deny her a day's payment all because of their xenophobia.

"But there is good news," Elsa brightened. "The experience you'll get from this will be worth a lifetime of treasures, yes?"

Then again, Merida could not believe that Elsa was trying to salvage a good thing out of this.

"Gee, Elsa, I'd love to stay but I have to…. see some big guy about breeding my horse and his reindeer… Yeah let's go with that… so..."

Merida sprinted out a door for the second time in a few days.

_This is harder than I thought_. Merida thought. _And I knew the policy stuff of ruling would be terrible. People should fistfight to solve their problems._

Elsa was left alone with her sleeping sister as she put her hand on her forehead.

"Way to go, Elsa," she mumbled to herself. "In addition to being boring, you are now seen as cheap. Could this get any worse?"

Suddenly, Anna began to talk in her sleep, "zzzzz…. What do YOU know about true love, Elsa? Unless you and your bedroom door… Ewwwwwwwwwwwww!... zzzzzzzzzzz"

Elsa rolled her eyes. Now she was seen as boring, cheap, and apparently an objectophile.


	12. Tales of Dragon Harassment

_**Merida decide to try her hand in dragon training. Of course, considering her impatience and disdain for vikings, it goes about as worse as you can imagine.**_

* * *

**Tales of Dragon Harassment**  
"So this is the seventh circle of Hell. This is the outer ring for idiots who dare pillage from people and defile property. I have never seen such a frightening place in my life. This whole area makes me sick to my stomach. I can never wish my worst enemies to be cursed with such damnation," Merida poetically droned.

"Hiccup, why are we helping her again?" Astrid asked.

"Because we are her friends… sadly. And that is what friends do," Hiccup deadpanned.

Viking hating Merida was currently in Berk. Truthfully, the village was no more dangerous to live in than any other place but Merida could not see that since she was too busy looking at everything through untrusting eyes. It did not help that Merida was getting more desperate to find something.

_Getting help from Vikings? Dad is gonna ask me to turn in my bow._

Of course, Merida's views on dragons were not any higher. She grew up learning that dragons were mindless, fearsome beasts that razed villages, kidnapped dames, and horde treasures all for themselves. There was also the bad breath that dragons produced that would kill anyone who made contact with it.

_No wonder they were able to train dragons. Birds of a feather,_ Merida thought.

As Merida followed the two dragon riding Vikings to their destination, Merida talked about her two past exploits of finding a "damn job" despite the fact that the other two were victims of her cooking catastrophe. Or maybe she remembered that fact and she just wanted to rub it in. Who knows as far as Merida was concerned.

"And then Elsa said that I couldn't get paid," Merida finished. "Can you believe that?"

"Uh huh," Astrid muttered paying more attention to everything else.

"I mean, it's not my fault I was born and raised somewhere else."

_But it is your fault that you ditched your friend in the most pathetic way possible._

_And it is your fault that you're being too dense to find your calling_

Merida realized that her inner voice was beginning to berate her for being worthless. A similar berating had happened when she had denied any responsibility of transforming her mother into a bear.

_But this time, I know it's not my fault. It just can't be my fault._

"Well, it kinda is your fault," Astrid said and Merida had a shocked expression on her face. Was this girl a telepath?

Merida shook her head to regain composure, her curly hair swinging in each direction. "And how was it my fault?"

"You could have accepted the offer. You have to admit, a princess, not even related by blood, being a lady in waiting in a foreign country? You would still have something to do and your mom would get off your back," Astrid explained. "If not that, who was the one who made spaghetti-pudding that almost poisoned us?

"Some people just think they're above responsibility. Right, Stormfly?" The blonde Viking affectionately scratched her dragon.

"Goldilocks…. Just… ugh," Merida stammered. "What's wrong with you?"

"Me? What's wrong with you?"

As the girls were about to get into a physical altercation, Hiccup said, "We're here. Thank Odin! Merida welcome to the Dragon Academy."

Merida looked at the so called academy. It really looked more like an enormous arena with a mesh of chains for a roof. She figured that was to keep the dragons from escaping. The tomboy princess also saw training supplies, targets, and other object.

"I guess it's not THAT bad," Merida admitted. Hiccup gave a small smile since this was the closest a compliment him or Astrid would get from Merida.

Hiccup had found his calling in dragon training which sounded simple enough. HOW he found it involved lying, secrecy, and trying to change the status quo of slaughtering dragons. But he persevered and now he ran a successful school that doubled as Berk's air force. Astrid had always known what her calling was: being the best Viking in all of Berk's history, and she eventually knew that change between man and dragon was coming. Because of that, she was Hiccup's second in command.

Hiccup and Astrid opened the doors to the school to find a stocky, young Viking training his brown, stocky dragon.

"Fishlegs. Meatlug." Hiccup greeted the human and the dragon, respectively.

"Fishlegs?" Merida asked.

"Baby names here aren't… conventional," Fishlegs explained.

"And how can that dragon fly when he…"

"She."

"SHE has tiny wings!"

"Yes, Merida, there have been people before you asking the same question," Astrid impatiently groaned.

Merida continued her indignant rant towards Fishlegs, "And you. You're a Viking? I find it hard to believe that Hiccup is Viking. But you… everything wrong with you is…." Merida gestured her hands towards Fishleg's being. "This."

"You just gestured to all of him," Hiccup sighed as he put his palm on his face.

"So?"

"So can we just start your training, please?" Hiccup snapped. The one legged Viking was beginning to regret offering Merida help. Actually, he had regretted helping Merida the moment she stepped off the boat and started complaining about 'Viking docks.'

Our heroes started Merida's training by setting up targets, feed, and other equipment. Hiccup walked Toothless towards Merida.

"So when do I get to ride a dragon?" Merida asked.

"You can't just up and ride a dragon," Astrid explained.

"Astrid's right," Hiccup finished. "You have to work very hard to get a dragon to trust you. Right, Toothless?"

Toothless happily growled as Hiccup rubbed his nose.

"Merida, here is how you start winning a dragon's trust. Put your hand in front of Toothless and avert your eyes downward a bit."

"Why?" Merida wondered. "If I do that, how would I know she…"

"He."

"HE won't bite my hand off?"

"Because staring directly a dragon will make you come off as intimidating and the dragon will be more likely to attack you."

Merida did as she was told. She put her hands towards Toothless' head and looked downward. Toothless then allowed himself to be petted.

"Wow, that actually worked," Merida squeaked. Then in a more condescending tone she said, "I mean you're nowhere as a good or smart animal friend as Angus but…"

Suddenly, Toothless growled angrily at the princess causing her to jump away from the Night Fury. She landed on her bottom but was too busy worrying about irritated Toothless' pupils becoming more feral catlike to notice.

"What did I do? What did I do?" Merida screeched. "How could he understand what I said?"

"Whether he can or not, Toothless picked up on your rude tone," Fishlegs explained.

Hiccup managed to calm Toothless down as Merida watched in curiosity, "Oh sure, but the dragon listens to Hiccup when every other sentence from his mouth is sarcasm. How can Toothless tolerate that coming from…" she gestured her hands towards Hiccup. "This."

"You just gestured to… oh nevermind let's just try this again."

So the training continued with Stormfly as the new dragon of choice for Merida, much to Astrid's chagrin. The training went along much better thanks to Hiccup's teaching skills and Merida finally learning when to keep her mouth shut. It wasn't all smooth sailing, since Hiccup's eye twitched every time Merida made Stormfly attack cutout, wooden Vikings, which she wasn't supposed to attack, in addition to the other targets. Merida gave a cheeky smirk in response and even dared to reward Stormfly with fish.

At the very least, Merida was starting to get the hang of dragon training. She imagined taking the lessons to DunBroch which would make her mother happy since Merida would finally be contributing to the kingdom and it would make her father proud because their might would be improved with trained dragons.

"Well done, Merida," Hiccup congratulated. "I have to admit, I did not expect you to pull through."

"Yeah," Astrid agreed. "I expected you to moan and complain every step of the way."

"Ha…ha," Merida sarcastically laughed.

"Well, now it's time for you to get your own dragon," Fishlegs cheered. "We can go to Dragon Island together to get one."

Merida raised an eyebrow, "Dragon Island?"

"Well, you know how Berk is with names by now."

"Right. Besides, why go there when I can simply have THAT for a dragon."

Merida pointed up to the sky, her cute face in wonder. However, the three Vikings had a fear of great concern. The dragon Merida was pointing to was a long, white serpent-like dragon that had teeth solong and sharp, the Tooth Fairy would sacrifice her wings to get one.

"Just what we need," Astrid said. "The Screaming Death is back!"

"Attack Level: 17, Speed Level: 17," Fishlegs gave the vital stats of the dragon in a blind panick. "Armor Strength: 20, Firepower: 10, Venom…"

"We don't have time for that, Fishlegs!"

"Astrid, you and Fishlegs find its mother," Hiccup ordered. "She must be nearby. Toothless and I will try to distract so it won't attack the town."

Merida, whether because of pride or because she wanted in on the action, had her own idea. And surely this idea would be better than whatever plan the Vikings were cooking up. She grabbed a few fish and ran out of the school.

"Merida? What are you doing?" Hiccup yelled.

"I can do this. I'm ready!" she yelled back. "THAT is the dragon that I want to train!"

"Are you so blinded by pride and impatience that you're gonna risk getting yourself killed?!" Astrid hollered.

Merida ignored her and grabbed her bow and arrow. No reason to train the dragon while defenseless. Merida saw the Screaming Death circling above the rocky shores of Berk.

"Hey, white dragon," Merida called out. "Lunchtime!"

Merida threw all the fishes, but winged reptile ignored them.

"What?" Merida shrieked. "I thought these stupid dragons like these damn fish!

"Hey?! Screaming Death?!" She called out and she cast her eyes downward and put out her hand. But the loud dragon still gave her no mind.

_Seriously, what do I have to do? I MUST get THIS dragon!_

So she did the only thing she thought that could work with a large, carnivorous creature that could outfly your running speed.

Violence.

She pulled out her bow and prepared herself, since she was going to aim at a moving target that flew. Despite the fact that she was about to shoot down a ferocious dragon, she felt more at ease with her bow and arrow than any of times her friends had tried to help her out with problems. Merida was one with the bow as she aimed for the Screaming Death's jugular vein, or at least, where she'd assume the vein was at and let go of the arrow.

The good news is that the arrow hit the Screaming Death where Merida wanted to hit it.

The bad news, the amount of damage done to the dragon was that of a mild, random itch.

_Oh shi..._ Merida thought.

The Screaming Death saw the puny human who fired that shot and in no time, it headed towards her. Merida, with all of her survival training did the smartest thing she could do.

"RUN! RUN AWAY!" she yelled. She sprinted as fast as she could but she had no chance to outrun the Screaming death.

_Stupid! Stupid! STUPID!_

The three Viking teens were on their respective dragons as they saw the chaos Merida brought on herself.

"Guys, we have to find its mother," Hiccup said. "It's the only way the Screaming Death will stop bothering Merida."

"Yeah I know but…" Astrid tried to defy. "But I kinda want to see where this goes."

"Astrid!"

"Oh alright, let's go."

Meanwhile, Merida kept trying to avoid the Screaming Death. Or as she'll call it: 'Her New Damn Nightmare.' Mor'du had nothing on this.

The Scottish Princess zigged and zagged to keep the dragon off its game, but Merida was honestly only delaying the inevitable. This monster was going to either eat her or seriously injure her beyond repair. Merida ran into a dead end which was an impassable rock formation with a cliff that she could not possibly climb fast enough to get away.

It was at this moment that Merida saw her life flash before her eyes.

She saw her five-year old self being taught by her father how to shoot a bow.

She witnessed her thirteen-year-old self and the start of her falling with her mother.

She saw herself begging for her mother's forgiveness when she thought she had failed to change her back into a human.

She relived the first time when she met Rapunzel, Jack, and Hiccup.

And, for some reason, she saw the time where Eugene scammed her of her money in a harmless prank, which he never did give back, that jerk.

As Merida waited for sweet death, she realized that it was taking a long time for it to come. She came back to reality to find that the Screaming Death was not chasing her anymore. The tomboy looked up to find it that seemed to be playing with a grayish black dragon much shorter than it. Hiccup would later tell her that was Whispering Death and that the Screaming Death was its offspring. The Whispering Death looked at the Viking teens on top of the cliff. Hiccup and Astrid had the good idea to get away before it roared a deafening howl of joy for its child's return. Fishlegs was not so lucky and would have hearing trouble for a few days. The serpent dragons flew off, never to bother Berk again…

At least until it comes back because that creature is always getting lost.

"Fishlegs, are you okay?" Hiccup asked.

"AM I FAYE? WHY WOULD YOU ASK IF I'M FAYE? I'M NOT FAYE!" a deafened Fishlegs yelled back.

The trio flew down on their dragons to meet Merida, who was still shaken up from being on the wrong end of the food chain.

"I-I-I-I," Merida stammered. "I saw my life flash before my eyes. Eugene owes money, still. That crook."

All Hiccup could do was shake his head in annoyance. "Well Merida, I hope you learned a valuable lesson today."

"I did."

"Good because…"

But the lesson that Merida learned was not 'patience and humility are the best when you learn something new.'

"I learned that you guys are bloody insane! I LEARNED that dragons will always be horrible beasts. Who do they think they are, wanting to be pampered?"

Hiccup started at Merida in shock, Astrid's face was beginning to form a scowl, and Fishlegs was still deaf.

"RACCOONS WANT TO HAVE A TEMPATURE? WHAT?"

"And you guys? Hiccup the Weird and Fishlegs the Living Book? What's wrong with you two? Training these unholy monsters? I could understand Astrid the Maniac doing this crap, though."

Astrid was getting madder by the second but Merida was not done in her post traumatic rant. "And this hellhole place you guys call home! UGH! There's so much wrong to it like…. like…"

Merida raised her hands to sky and spun around then stopped before she made herself dizzy. "THIS!"

Hiccup covered his face with both of his hands in disappointed, "Did you seriously just gesture to an entire island?"

Astrid was fuming now. She always had a problem with idiots and the last thing she needed was someone who she thought of as an idiot insulting her, her friends, her culture, her entire being just because said idiot was too headstrong for her own good. So she walked up to Merida…

And kicked her in the shin, "That's for your arrogance!"

Then she punched the princess in the face, "And that's… for everything else!"

Now Merida's face was red in fury. How dare some barbarian hit her. After she spat out a bit of blood, Merida said, "Fine. I guess I'll sink to your level!"

The girls proceeded to fight each other. Each girl landed a blow on the other as their rage kept them going at it. Hiccup, Fishlegs, and dragons watched with varying degrees of annoyance and concern. Hiccup actually started to wonder if giving them maces and letting fight to the end was a GOOD idea.

"HICCUP?" Fishlegs yelled. "THEY'RE STILL FIGHTING AND HURTING EACH OTHER. BUT FOR SOME REASON, I'M GETTING A STRANGE, HAPPY FEELING FROM THIS!"

Hiccup just sighed. "This… is my life."

"THIS IS YOUR WIFE?! WHO? ASTRID OR MERIDA?!"

Meanwhile, Toothless just chewed on his itchy armpit.

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_**Reviews recalling or whatever**_

_**hcsp1- Don't worry, eventually Merida will find something she's good at.**_

_**Guest- Everyone on Deviantart like the Elsa x door joke as well lol**_


	13. Tales of Espionage

_**Merida decides to try Eugene's job of being an undercover spy. Only to run into problems and a poorly thought out assassination attempt.**_

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**Tales of Espionage  
**Merida sat in a corner of a tavern pinching the top of her nose in frustration. Whether due to boredom, poison, or Vikings, Merida's prospects always seemed to end up almost killing someone. Sometimes even her damn self.

_This is getting ridiculous!_ Merida thought. _Is there ANYTHING that I'm good at? Is there SOMETHING that I can do for a living for the rest of my life and NOT go insane? Why is this so hard? All my friends found their life callings so easily._

Merida huffed in annoyance due to her stunt with dragon training. Everyone figured it would be best for Merida to leave unless they wanted to start a war between DunBroch and Berk. The princess almost decided to stay on Berk just to spite Astrid and start a stupid war. However, she decided against that since it would be awkward for the rest of their friends. "Hey peeps, I'm gonna flat out kill Hiccup and Astrid and they want to kill me all because we're at war. Whose side are you guys on? Tee hee!"

As Merida took a sip of her fruit punch to quench her dry throat, she realized two things. For starters, this is a very cautious tavern. The bartender refused to give Merida her alcohol because she was underage, or some other idiotic excuse. The other realization was, where the hell was the friend who was supposed to help her?

_Damnit, Eugen, I did not come back to Corona just so that you could ditch me at this tavern! And who names a tavern 'The Snuggly Duckling'?_

Yes, our heroine was in 'The Snuggle Duckling' which was formerly known as one of the most dangerous bars in Corona, quite possibly in all of Eurasia. But thanks to a blonde princess and her future husband, the scallywags were reformed and the tavern was a much friendlier place, though the owners still decided to keep the barbarian look of the pub, because of tradition and all that jazz.

It was then that Eugene came into the bar and sat across from Merida. On his person was a sword within its sheath.

"Red," he greeted.

"You," she greeted back.

They stared act each other in awkward silence with Eugene making the situation more uncomfortable by resting his chin on his hands and smirking. Not wanting to be outdone, Merida placed her cheek on her hand and stuck out her tongue.

Eventually, Merida ran out of patience and asked, "So why am I here?"

"I'm glad you asked, Red," Eugene said as he shifted his eyes across the establishment scanning for trouble. He then whispered, "I'm a spy."

"You're a spy?" Merida answered back in a fairly loud voice. Thankfully, no one heard her.

"Keep your voice down. I don't think they heard you in Africa."

"You're a spy?" she repeated in a hushed whisper.

"Yep, occasionally I work undercover for the kingdom. It's actually quite fun."

Eugene found his calling sometime after he married the lost princess. The good news is that his status rose from petty thief to prince consort. The bad news is that his status rose from petty thief to prince consort. See, the other nobles looked down on Eugene because he was nothing more than a social leper to them and they spent a rather large amount of their time letting him know that. Naturally, their snobbish insults did not faze Eugene since he'd received those insults all of his life. But once the nobles started insulting Rapunzel's naivety and social ineptness behind her back, the gloves were off.

Using his exceptional thievery skills and meeting noble's underlings, who did not know what Eugene looked like, he was able to get dirt on the nobles. When he ran into the nobles again, preparing to go another round of snootiness, Eugene played his hand. Without mentioning any names, he revealed that one upperclassman was swindling money from an orphanage, another one was having an affair with another man, and a third one was also having an affair…. albeit with a duck. This caused the members of nobility to back off from him and his wife. Sometime later, the King of Corona found out about Eugene's stunt and offered him the work of going undercover to expose more villains and crooks. It was not a day to day job, but Eugene did not mind. He was contributing to the kingdom.

Of course, Merida still had one question that rattled her teenage mind, "Eugene, you're the PRINCE of Corona. Wouldn't someone recognize you?"

"Oh that's the beauty of it. The shady scum I meet with don't know who I am?"

"Wha?"

"You know how I complain that artists just can't get my nose right?"

"How can't I? You only cry about it every hour."

"Well turns out, that having different shape of a nose in pictures, wanted posters, or whatever makes me unrecognizable to anyone who actually sees me. They don't see me as Prince Eugene. They see me as Flynn Rider: Thief with a great nose.

"So anyway, two shady looking nobodies from the Southern Isles are coming here to make a deal with obtaining weaponry for their brigade of bandits. You and I are going to pretend we have said weapons."

"And what makes you think they're going to believe us?"

Eugene pulled out the sword from its sheath to let Merida have a look at it, and she was in awe. The sword was showered in an angelic glow against the sunlight. Merida could not help herself as she grabbed the sword. The handle was well crafted and its grip was firm but fair.

"Yeah, they're gonna believe us," Merida admitted.

"Yep. We show this sword as a sample and then we'll say that we have the rest of the supplies somewhere else. So we'll meet the rogues in another location with the authorities hidden nearby and boom.

"And I've given you the codename… The Red Bear."

"Red Bear?" Merida squirmed in her wooden chair. "You're kidding, right?"

She had hoped that Eugene would remember that she was not fond of bears since one did the mildly annoying thing of almost killing her.

"Nope," Eugene answered. "You need to face your fears sometimes. Calling you 'The Red Bear' is just the first step."

Merida did not look amused at Eugene's bizarre reasoning. After a few minutes Eugene took notice of a different situation.

"There they are," Eugene said. Merida started to turn her head around but Eugene said, "No don't look. Too suspicious."

However, the rogues were not the kind of guys Merida expected. For starters, they were kind of attractive. Both of them had red hair, green eyes, and long sideburns. One of them was a portly and middle aged and the other was a tall, lanky fellow who looked to be in his late-twenties. Merida noticed something off about them. It was way they walked. Back straight, head held high. Whoever these two were, they were not ordinary rogues.

"Are you Flynn Rider?" the older man said.

"Depends. Are you here for the weapons?"

"Why yes we are?"

"Excuse me," Merida added. "We were told that our customers were common criminals. No offense, but you two do not act like Corona's Most Wanted."

_Why would they be offended by not being called rogues? _Merida chastised to herself.

The younger man moved toward our heroine and stared closely at her.

"What's your name, little girl?"

"I'm… The Red Bear," she sighed.

"Your protégé, I'd presumed, Mr. Rider," the older gentleman asked.

"Yeah, The Red Bear here is skilled with a sword and can charm any man to her will. Good abilities for a thief."

Merida turned away a bit from everyone to keep them from seeing her blushing.

"But this young woman IS right," the aging man said. "We are not common criminals. We are warriors of justice fighting for a noble cause. "

"And what noble cause would that be then?" the Scottish princes questioned.

Merida quickly figured that the old bag of bones was vain and arrogant enough to explain whatever crime he was going to commit in the name of 'the greater good.'

And he did not disappoint, "I am Prince Henry, third in line to the succession of the Southern Isles crown. And this is my brother, Prince Hugo, tenth in line."

"Yeah… hi," Hugo flatly said.

"Our righteous conquest involves getting our poisonous eldest brother off the throne!"

"And exactly why is he is a poison to your kingdom?" Eugene wondered although he knew exactly what kind of answer he was going to get.

"I would figure that my explanation will go right over head but if you want to know, the King of the Southern Isles is a false prophet. Thanks to him and his concern for the people," Henry formed air quotes around 'the people.' "My revenue has seen a slightly lower increase by one percent! This cannot be tolerated!"

"I can't believe it," Merida deadpanned. "That's horrible."

"Indeed it is, young lady," Henry said, missing Merida's blatant sarcasm. "My plan consists of building an army of mercenaries and using weapons from other nations, so the evidence will not get traced back to me. And after they killed the king and my brother next in line, I'll round up the mercenaries and have them executed. It's the perfect plan."

Actually, it was not the perfect plan. Eugene saw plenty of holes where this 'plan' could go wrong. In fact, he was actually considering giving this crazy man weapons so he could see how far Henry's plan could go before he was caught. Or killed due to his own stupidity.

Meanwhile, Hugo kept staring at Merida, who noticed felt his eyes on her and became uncomfortable. Was everyone in the Southern Isles royal family a complete and utter nutbag?

"You're from Scotland, aren't you? That accent of yours…" Hugo explained.

"Yes," Merida squeaked. But she regained composure and said, "Yes I am."

"So Henry," Eugene said to the possibly senile gentlemen. "You're going to need some weaponry to start your revolution. Take a look at this baby."

Eugene presented Henry with the sword. Like Merida, the older prince was also ogling at the sword.

"And I have more where this came from. Sadly the shipment is not currently on my person, right now. Why don't we meet in another location… say three hours from now?"

Eugene gave Henry a map that showed the directions. Pleased, Henry shook Eugene's hand and left, along with his brother, The Snuggly Duckling. As he left, Hugo kept looking at Merida.

"He knows!" Merida yelped. "He knows who I am."

"Oh come on, Red."

"Then why do you think he was looking at me?"

"He was obviously enraptured by your beauty and longs to marry you after their revolution."

Merida looked at Eugene as if he was second biggest idiot on the blue planet. It would be the biggest idiot, but that title seemed more deserving for Prince Henry of the Southern Isles.

"Okay, look," Eugene rationed. "The odds of those two recognizing you as the princess of DunBroch are like a million to one."

Merida just sighed. How did Eugene do this while keeping calm and not worrying about being exposed? Did the nose thing really throw people off?

In the three hours allotted, Eugene briefed the soldiers along with the horse, Maximus, about the location and where to hide. Then, the duo walked towards their destination: An empty shack in the middle of the woods.

"The rest of the 'loot' is in there," Eugene explained. "Don't worry, the swords are decorative."

"Those kinds of swords can still hurt," Merida pointed out.

"You worry too much. You'll turn into Elsa if you keep doing that," Eugene smirked as he casually tossed his frying pan.

Merida rolled her eyes. The sooner she and Eugene completed this insane task, the sooner she could finally have a damn job. Of course, there would forever be the fear of reconginition. But it could not be that hard to hide herself in public.

_Maybe a haircut or something,_ she thought.

_I was actually getting worried. I might actually have thought I was not good at anything. Silly Merida._ She thought to herself.

She breathed a sigh of relief and the weight of her heart felt much lighter. Nothing could go wrong now. As she saw the two imbeciles from the Southern Isles approach them, Merida actually had to keep herself from chuckling too loudly. In a few moments, she would have the last laugh.

Or at least she thought she would until the moment Henry and Hugo pulled out crossbows and aimed them at our heroes, with Henry holding his sideways with only one hand for some bizarre reason.

"Whoa there, guys," Eugene flinched then he and Merida raised their hands in the air. "What's going on? I have the equipment in that shed. You want a lower the price or something? I am a reasonable man when I DON'T have an arrow aimed at me."

"Shut it!" Henry yelled aiming his bow at Merida. "Do you really think that I'm an idiot?"

"No, of course not?" Merida lied.

"Don't patronize me, Missy. Hugo here told me EXACTLY who you are!"

Merida gulped as sweat trickled down her eyebrows.

"You're King Fergus of DunBroch! You think that girly appearance can fool me?"

Merida shook her head in utter confusion and despite Eugene still having an arrow aimed at him; he could not help but snicker.

"You moron!" Hugo bellowed. "I told you she was Princess Merida, DAUGHTER to King Fergus of DunBroch!"

"They don't know who I am, you said," she muttered to Eugene. "A million to one, you said."

Merida was getting a massive headache. Her rage at yet again screwing up added with the rage of watching Prince Henry hold his crossbow like a twit.

She just could not let THAT go, "Why are you holding your crossbow like that?"

"Because it makes me look cooler," Henry the 'intellect' explained. "And holding this way might actually kill you faster."

He was right, it would kill her faster. But not because of the arrow piercing a vital organ, but due to her rising blood pressure thanks to this nimrod improperly holding a bow. Not wanting to deal with the idiotic prince, she quickly grabbed an arrow from behind and shot it, with the force of the arrow knocked the crossbow out of Henry's hand. Henry screamed like a little baby. Hugo was distracted just enough for Eugene to run up to him and knock him out with his frying pan. Naturally, Maximus and the rest of the cavalry arrived after the fight was over because luck is never on your side when you need it most.

Henry and Hugo would proceed to be arrested for weapons smuggling in Corona and trying to overthrow the Southern Isles government. It was not what Hugo wanted. Sure he disliked his eldest brother as well, but he mostly joined Henry's cause just so he could laugh when his plan for revolution would blow up in his face. He just HAD to stick around a bit too long. Well, at least he now knows how Hans felt. (In a cruel sense of irony, Hugo was one of the brothers who ignored Hans, and he would continue to ignore Hans despite sharing a cell with him)

Merida and Eugene rested next to the shack after the guards took the criminals away.

"Well that was… different," Merida admitted. "So when's the next assignment? I know this isn't day to day stuff but…"

"Actually," Eugene interrupted. "I'm gonna have to let you go."

"I'm fired?" Merida shrieked. "Why?"

"They recognized you."

"You were the one who said they wouldn't, you ass."

"Yeah and that's totally my bad. But you still have to be one to go. You know what they say. Last hired, first fired."

"Who says that?"

"Beats me," Eugene shrugged.

Merida was near total panic. It was not supposed to end like this. She sighed as she only had more chance to make this right.

_I guess I'll take Jack's offer to become a Guardian._

"I truly am sorry, Red," Eugene apologized. "For firing you…"

"…and for not returning my money," she added.

"What… oh yeah that," Eugene recalled. And then he laughed very loudly.

Only to stop when he realized that the tomboy was making the cutest yet scariest angry face ever.

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_**More review responses  
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_**ElsatheSnowQueen2- Thanks for all those responses lol  
90304155- Sadly the overall story will eventually end. I can't write this forever. But don't worry, it won't be for quite awhile  
**_

_**1Guest- I know, right? lol**_


	14. Tales of Guardianship

_**Merida's last chance: She tries out becoming a Guardian. Can she succeed?**_

_**Since this story is from Merida's perspective, the Guardian's real names will not be used here but their legendary names (i.e. Santa instead of North)**_

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**Tales of Guardianship**  
Merida was pacing back and forth in the outskirts of Corona yanking her curly hair in frustration. Her footsteps leaving a small, yet visible, crater on the dirt road. To say Merida was upset was an understatement. She was in complete desperation now.

_How?_ She thought to herself. _My friends make it look SO easy. It just… clicks with all of them. And I'm getting left behind. Why can't I find something I'm good at?_

Sensing his human's distress, Angus moved over to Merida for her to easily reach her bow and arrows. The archer decided to practice her aim a bit while she waited. And of course, archery calmed Merida down from her mental anguish as she entered a trance like state of pure bliss while the arrow escaped her fingertips.

Sadly, when she finished practicing, the concern came rushing back in. Maybe she should have stayed as Elsa's lady in waiting.

_But what about the fact that Elsa's councilmen may have started looking for ways to ruin you? _Her inner voice asked her.

Well, maybe Merida should have remained in the Dragon Academy, since she was actually making some form of progress there.

_Oh you burned that bridge and the soiled the earth. _

Merida groaned in frustration, startling her horse a bit.

"Well, well, well, I'm here, Merida."

Merida turned around to see that Jack Frost walking in place for no reason, whatsoever.

"Why are you doing that?" she asked.

"It's amusing."

Merida shrugged at the winter spirit. "So how on Earth are you going to help me? I don't exactly have winter powers like you do?"

"Oh what you're going to do will require no ice powers," Frost explained.

"Okay but one more thing. It's fall in the southern hemisphere and it's spring up here. So what do you do for the remaining 6 months?"

"I'd tell you but then I have to…" Jack said. "Eh I'll tell you. I just laze around."

Merida blankly stared at Jack. How on earth was he going to help her with her situation?

"Don't worry though," Jack reasoned. "I have one thing I do 24/7. How do you want to get there?"

"What do you mean?"

"Option one involves me carrying you there in the air. Option two…"

"Option two!" Merida answered with an interruption.

"Don't you want to hear it?"

"Jack, the last time you took my hand to go flying, you flew me into a tree!"

"I said I was sorry. But c'mon option one is better this time."

Merida tapped her foot in impatience.

"Okay if you say so," he chuckled. Then he yelled, "She's over here, boys!"

Merida was about to ask who he was talking to until someone quickly picked her up.

"Hey!" she yelled. "Put me down!"

In a mad panic the Scott looked to see that she was being grabbed by the most oddly looking apes she had ever seen. But it's not like there are that many apes in DunBroch. Apes also do not put young women into sacks and sling them over their shoulders. As Merida was screaming inside the bag, one of the apes pulled out a snow globe and blabbered to it. Doing so created a wormhole that lead to a factory sitting on top of a snowy mountain. The one of giant primates looked at Jack as it pointed into the wormhole.

"Eh, I'll take the scenic route with the wind," Jack denied. "I also don't want to hear Bunny's rambling in my ear just right now."

Meanwhile, Merida was bouncing around due to the sack's swinging motion and was unable to see anything but red, not because of rage as she was quite afraid what could possibly happen to her; but because she was still in the red sack, so there was really nothing else to look at.

_Well this is a funny way to die,_ she thought. _I can see my tombstone. "Merida of DunBroch: Killed by weird looking apes._

Suddenly, the swinging stopped. Merida figured that the giant monkey must have stopped walking like a behemoth. At least the princess would not vomit before she croaked. Merida then felt a sudden pain, instantly saw light, and landed on her left side. She figured the idiot dropped the sack to let her out. Big mistake. If she was going down, she was going down fighting even if she didn't have her weapons.

Letting out a war cry, the princess got into a fighting stance only to soften when she realized that she was looking down at a bunch of tiny creatures with pointy ears.

"Uhhhhh," she wondered, flabbergasted. "Elves?"

The tiny creatures nodded 'yes.'

Looking around, she realized that she was in a toy factory of sorts with snow the can be seen falling from a window.

"It… can't be…" she said. "That would mean… Jack isn't crazy or a liar….That would also mean that there really is a…."

"HO HO HO!" a booming voice shouted.

Merida turned around to find herself staring at three strange-looking people. The biggest man had a white beard, with tattoos over his arms and he wore red. The girl looked like a cross between a human and a humming bird. She even hovered like one. The last person was very short and…. made of sand?

"Merida," the big guy greeted. "Welcome to the North Pole. Now what do you know about Pitch Black?"

Merida took everything in: The scenery, the people, and his question.

And she fainted right away.

* * *

_Wake… Tooth… don't…. mouth._

Merida was slowly coming back into consciousness. What a weird dream she had. To think that Santa, and what she could guess, a fairy and a sand creature that must have been created by a sand version of Elsa, existed.

_Sandy… insane? ... No sand drill!_

Wait, what was that? As Merida regained awareness she realized that she must still be dreaming. This wacky place with these crazy characters was still around.

Finding the sand creature hovering above her noticeably hiding some kind drill made of sand behind his back did not help matters.

She and the sandy guy let out a shriek. Or at least, the sandy guy would have if he was not a mute.

"Merida?" the big guy asked. "Are you alright?"

"Uhhhh yeah," she stammered. Merida did not know whether this was really a dream so she decided to just play along until she found herself awake by the fireplace. "I'm fine… Santa Claus?"

"Oh so you know who I am. That's very good. Cause you are on nice list this year. Meet the Tooth Fairy…"

The Tooth Fairy flew up to Merida and forcibly opened her mouth. "That's a cavity. This will not do young lady. And from the looks of your gums, I'd say that your wisdom teeth are going to grow in very crooked. Maybe if I can…"

"Tooth," Santa interrupted. "Merida, this is the Sandman."

The Sandman 'talked' by having objects flash right above his head: a hand, a clock, and a drill. Again with that drill.

"Ummm hello?" Merida greeted. "Why am I here again?"

"To tell us what you know about Pitch Black's possible second return," said someone with an Australian accent.

Merida noticed that the accent came from a giant rabbit carrying a boomerang. Merida had now truly seen everything.

"Let me guess…" she started. "The Easter Bunny."

"Right."

"That's good," she finished before fainting again.

* * *

_Who….that…Frost!_

_Sandy…. Drill…. Stop that!_

_…Moon…warn… dirty pictures?_

Merida woke up again finding herself laying on a bed with the Sandman still hovering above her and still hiding a drill made of sand. And was it bigger than the last one? Merida quickly crawled away from him and stood up.

"Can someone please tell me what on Earth is going on?" she demanded.

"I don't know," the Tooth Fairy admitted. "What IS going on, Jack?"

The winter spirit stepped out of a corner of the workshop giggling in amusement. "Alright. Alright. This girl doesn't have any info on the boogeyman's second return. There is no second return."

_What? The Boogeyman's real as well?_ Merida thought. _At least I know who to blame for my nightmares about bears. I got an arrow for that'll I fire right up his…._

"She is just a friend who's looking for something to do with her life," Jack explained. "And I was thinking… why not let her become a Guardian?"

The other four Guardians stared at Jack.

"What? It's a great idea!" Jack reasoned. "She's good with a bow and arrow so she can defend herself. I mean, you guys complained about Cupid harassing you to join because he can use a bow. And she likes children."

"Well actually, I'm kinda…" Merida started to tell the truth but Jack shushed her.

The Easter Bunny chuckled, "Didn't think this one through. Did ya, mate?"

"Jack, we can't just go around and pick and choose who can be a Guardian. It's for Man on Moon to decide," Santa countered.

_There's a Man on the Moon? What's next, the Succubus from the Sun? _The princess thought.

Jack was looking for another reason, any reason, to let Merida become a Guardian. "Well what if she becomes an auxiliary Guardian?"

"Oh Jack, she can't become an auxiliary Guardian…. can she?" The Tooth Fairy wondered. The Sandman shrugged his shoulders since he did not know either.

Santa, being well…. Santa, did not have the heart to deny the young woman something because of a technicality.

"Guardians? We'll make Merida here an auxiliary Guardian. All she has to do is pass one time trial. Tooth, get your hands out of her mouth!"

Yep, Tooth was invading Merida's personal space due to that cavity and her need to fix it. "Awww."

The Easter Bunny was not amused with Santa's decision. "Are you kidding me? We can't let one of Jack's little groupies…"

"G-G-Groupie?" Merida stammered.

The Bunny ignored her. "… become a Guardian . I mean, she's still mortal."

"Oh Bunny," Jack scoffed. "Are you worried that she might take your place?"

"Oh that ain't happening ever. C'mon on, guys. Let's get this over with."

As the four senior Guardians left to set up Merida's test, the Scotswoman pulled Jack back.

"OW. What was that for?"

'What made them think that I was your groupie, Frost?"

"Well I may have told them that Rapunzel, you, Elsa, and Anna are… madly in love with me," he explained. He cheekily smiled as Merida just stared at him in annoyance.

"Why would you say something like THAT?"

"It was funny."

Just as Merida was about to drop the subject and prepare, Jack brought up a new question.

"Neither you nor our six friends believed me when I said that there was a Santa Claus and that I fought alongside with him to stop the Boogeyman, did you?"

"Nope," Merida admitted.

Jack was beside himself with that revelation. "Why not?"

"It was funny," she mocked. "Well that and you crave attention."

"Do you think I crave attention that much to lie about knowing Santa Claus?" the spirit demanded to know.

"You went around telling them that four girls are in love with you. So yes I do," Merida smirked.

Jack found his calling by… wandering around the Earth for almost three centuries because the person or creature who revived him could not be bothered to tell him why he existed in the first place because… reasons or something. But Jack always did love children in the platonic, not sick, way. So he made snow days in the hopes of even just one child believing in him. Eventually, he figured out that protecting someone from his past life was the reason he would eventually become a Guardian.

Merida prepared for this test as Jack gave her words of encouragement. Since becoming an auxiliary Guardian was her last hope, Merida spared no chances. She stretched every single one of her limbs to avoid pulling something. Even her eyeballs got much of preparation when she kept opening them up real wide.

"Calm down," Jack comforted. "You're going to do great."

"Calm down?" Merida panicked. "How can I calm down? I need to find SOMETHING that I'm able to do and do it for the rest of my life. No pressure or anything."

"Aren't you going to be a queen for the rest of your life?"

"I… well… you don't get it!" Merida snapped. "You all found your calling. Some of them are larger than life. Some of them are not much, but they still enjoy what they do. How did I not find mine yet? It's not fair."

"Merida, it took me 300 years to find my calling," Jack reasoned. "Some people are just late bloomers.

"Or in my case, blooming long past the Grim Reaper's touch," he joked. "He's real as well, by the way."

Merida was at least grateful that her friend was trying to cheer her up. But it looked like she was almost too far gone in nervousness.

Just then Tooth Fairy came up to Merida longing to repair that blasted cavity that's giving her the metaphorical middle finger. But alas, people love personal space for some reason.

"You're gonna need these," the Tooth Fairy said as she presented Merida with her weapons.

Merida's smiled brightly, "I figured they would be back… wherever. Thank you."

"We're ready. Follow me."

They followed the fairy to an open room. Merida could not believe her eyes. This was less of a training room and more of a… children's playground. Scattered around, were bushes, pillows, defective toys, and another one of those crazy ubermonkeys.

"Merida," Santa called. "Your test will be the following."

He put eggs and coins into a basket and gave it to Merida.

_This is going be… interesting_. The princess thought.

"You will put the eggs into the bushes and take the teeth from under the pillows and replace them with coins."

"That doesn't sound so bad," she gloated breathing a sigh of relief.

"That's not the fun part," the Easter Bunny smirked. "The fun part is avoiding Phil over there."

Phil pointed at his eyes and then pointed at Merida. Apparently he means business.

"Yeah, I've never been able to get past him either," Jack admitted.

Merida did a double take at Jack, "What do you mean…"

But Santa interrupted her, "Merida, you have ten minutes to complete your task. We'll time you using this hourglass. When it runs out, the time is over."

_Then why call it an hourglass_? Merida mused in her thoughts. _Shouldn't it be called a 'tenminuteglass'?_

"Ready?" Santa called out.

Merida got into a runner start because why not? She might be slowly becoming insane. This was complete madness after all. And she was listening to the supposed myths of her childhood.

"Set…"

_This is it. It all comes down to this!_

"Go!"

Merida took off sprinting while somehow making sure to not break the eggs in her basket. She passed the first bush where she hid an egg in it.

_I don't know how this is going to make me a protector of children, but okay._

Of course, Phil was not taking this sitting down. He charged at Merida like the giant gorilla that he is. Merida had to roll out of the way. While doing so, she grabbed a tooth from under a pillow and then threw the coin under pillow as if she was skipping a rock.

"Go, Meri. Go Meri. Go!" Jack cheered at the graceful moves Merida had.

Merida placed another egg into a bush. She wondered if Phil was going to be a jerk and break the eggs or steal the coins, but he was not. At least Merida did not have to worry about that.

But worrying about the thousand pound monkey chasing you is something she still had to do. Phil scaled the walls and tried to body slam Merida who was lucky enough to get of the way quickly.

"PHIL?" Santa yelled. "I said DON'T cause her bodily harm!"

Phil blabbered something that sounded like 'sorry' and continued the chase. Merida saw three pillows lined up in a row and Phil not far behind her. So thinking quickly, the fired an arrow that amazingly went underneath the pillows and the arrow had three baby teeth stuck to it. The tomboyish archer sprinted to each pillow placing a coin every time.

Even the Easter Bunny was impressed by that move. "She's quite a natural with a bow. I hate to admit it, but maybe she could be useful."

"At least Cupid would stop bothering us at the very least," the Tooth Fairy spoke up.

"It's always a nice moment whenever Bunny admits he's wrong," Jack smirked.

"Hardy har har," the Bunny sarcastically said.

Five minutes were remaining on the glass and Merida was only half way done.

_Too close. Too close. Too freaking close!_ Merida panicked in her head. And Phil was charging straight towards her. As Phil dived, Merida quickly jumped up, landed on Phil's head, and use said head to spring herself forward to the next bush

"Ha ha!" Merida laughed. "This is actually quite fun."

Merida's worries were melting away with this activity especially whenever she was using her bow. But why was that? Sure she always enjoyed firing her wooden weapon, but what was this newly uncovered feeling trying to burrow out?

Merida had no time to ponder her question because after putting another coin under a pillow, Phil came charging forward like a bull seeing red. He managed to grab the princess.

"Take your stinking paws off of me you damned dirty ape," Merida yelled.

After saying that totally unique and not borrowed line, Merida took an arrow and used it to lightly pick at Phil's arm. Phil let out a feminine sounding yelp despite not being that painful and dropped Merida.

"Merida!" Jack yelled. "You only have thirty seconds left!"

Merida looked around at her surroundings. Only one more egg and one more coin remained in her basket with Phil restarting his pursuit. Thankfully, the bush was right next to her and she put the egg in it. She then proceeded to sprint to the final pillow, but Phil was quickly catching up to her and time was running out.

With all of her might, Merida took a powerful jump towards the pillow. Only for Phil to grab her leg, they landed with a thump with Merida only a foot away from the pillow. She grabbed the tooth from the pillow. After struggling to get the coin, she finally got it.

_This is it. I'm SO close._

Coin in hand, Merida stretched her arm towards the pillow, victory was in reach. She finally found her calling.

Only for a hole to suddenly appear beneath her and she dropped right in. When she landed on her bottom, her confusion was beyond fathomable and she found herself in front of very downcast looking Guardians. Even the snarky Easter Bunny was silent due to melancholy.

"We're very sorry, Merida," Santa slowly said.

_No. No. No. Please no._ Merida silently begged.

"But you ran out of time."

Merida fell deaf to the rest of Santa's words. She was too busy reliving a moment in her life.

_She was four years old at the time. Her parents had just given her a new dress for her to wear and most likely get dirty since toddlers are dirt magnets. Little Merida giggled at her parents making funny faces. Too young to understand, Merida was full of bliss. Even when her stuffy nanny was turning around corner._

_"Merida," the nanny asked. "What do you want to be when you grow up?"_

_"Ummmmm" Merida wondered while scratching her head. "I don't know."_

_Fergus could not believe his ears. "Are you daft? Who asks a little girl who can't even read yet that question?"_

_"Besides," Elinor added. "She could be anything she wants to be."_

_Merida's face brightened up. "Really, mommy?"_

_"Of course little one."_

_Merida squealed in joy at her mother's faith in her._

"Merida? Merida?" someone asked.

Merida snapped out of her dream to find the Guardians staring at her with concern. Santa walked up to her and kneeled on her level.

"Don't worry, little one," he reassured. "Even you will find your calling."

Merida did not really believe him, but she nodded in agreement. All she wanted to do right now was cry.

Thankfully, Santa Claus was there to allow his shirt to be used as a tissue.

* * *

_**Don't do you just want to give Merida some hugs? The next story is the conclusion of Merida's arc where she WILL find her calling.**_

_**Answering reviews:**_

_**andreita1000lee:- As I said before, there's no fanshipping. Please, people don't ask for Jelsa again. There are plenty of Jelsa stories to read.**_

_**TheDerpyMustache- I saw HtTYD2 as well :D  
**_


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